tell you her father will pay any sum rather than allow
a shadow of disgrace to fall upon her. I will marry her at all
hazards; but it must be kept secret, and in a little time some hint of
this romantic excursion will be certain to reach head-quarters; and I
shall have the old man as eager for the marriage as any of us, and
ready to come down handsomely, too. I tell you it makes every thing
doubly sure."

"It may be so," said the other, in a dissatisfied manner.

"Well, like it or not, I can see no other way by which you will be
certain of the three thousand dollars that you won of me," replied
Jameson, coolly.

Byrne dashed his cane across the pansies, sending the broken blossoms
in a shower over the gravel-walks.

"Well, manage as you like, the affair is nothing to me, but it smacks
strongly of the scoundrel, Herbert, I can tell you that."

"Pah! this little plot of mine will probably amount to nothing. The
old gentleman may give in at once to the tears and caresses of my
sweet bride up yonder. Faith, I doubt if any man could resist her."

"More than probable--more than probable!" rejoined the other; "but I
should not like to be within the sight of that girl's eye if she ever
finds out the game you have been playing."

"Yes, it would be very likely to strike fire," replied Jameson,
carelessly; "but she loves me, and there is no slave like a woman that
loves. You will see that before the year is over, every spark that
flashes from her eyes I shall force back upon her heart till it burns
in, I can tell you. But there she is, all in bridal white, and
fluttering like a bird around the old stoop. Come, we must not keep
her waiting!"

Meantime, Florence Hurst had entered a little chamber, where, nineteen
years before, she first opened her eyes to the light of heaven. It was
at one end of the house, and across the window fell the massive boughs
of an old apple-tree, heaped with masses of the richest foliage, and
rosy with half-open blossoms. A curtain of delicate lace fluttered
before the open sash, bathed in fragrance, and through which the rough
brown of the limbs, the delicate green in which the rosy buds seemed
matted, gleamed as through a wreath of mist.

The night before Florence had left a robe of pure white muslin near
the window, exquisitely fine, but very simple, which was to be her
wedding-dress. It was strange, but a sort of faintness crept over her
heart as she saw the dress; and she sat down powerle