iver stirred
her pale face, which seemed turned to marble by this last effort of
her maiden pride. "I have nothing to pardon," said she. "It was I,
whose bold behavior, unbecoming a modest and well-trained young
woman, gave rise to what seemed like presumption on your part." The
sense of justice was strong within her, but she made her speech
haughtily and primly, as if she had learned it by rote from some
maiden school-mistress, and pulled her arm away and turned to go; but
Thomas's words stopped her.

"Not--unbecoming if it came--from the heart," said he, brokenly,
scarcely daring to speak, and yet not daring to be silent.

Then Evelina turned on him, with a sudden strange pride that lay
beneath all other pride, and was of a nobler and truer sort. "Do you
think I would have given you the look that I did if it had not come
from my heart?" she demanded. "What did you take me to be--false and
a jilt? I may be a forward young woman, who has overstepped the
bounds of maidenly decorum, and I shall never get over the shame of
it, but I am truthful, and I am no jilt." The brilliant color flamed
out on Evelina's cheeks. Her blue eyes met Thomas's with that courage
of innocence and nature which dares all shame. But it was only for a
second; the tears sprang into them. "I beg you to let me go home,"
she said, pitifully; but Thomas caught her in his arms, and pressed
her troubled maiden face against his breast.

"Oh, I love you so!" he whispered--"I love you so, Evelina, and I was
afraid you were angry with me for it."

"And I was afraid," she faltered, half weeping and half shrinking
from him, "lest you were angry with me for betraying the state of my
feelings, when you could not return them." And even then she used
that gentle formality of expression with which she had been taught by
her maiden preceptors to veil decorously her most ardent emotions.
And, in truth, her training stood her in good stead in other ways;
for she presently commanded, with that mild dignity of hers which
allowed of no remonstrance, that Thomas should take away his arm from
her waist, and give her no more kisses for that time.

"It is not becoming for any one," said she, "and much less for a
minister of the gospel. And as for myself, I know not what Mistress
Perkins would say to me. She has a mind much above me, I fear."

"Mistress Perkins is enjoying her mind in Boston," said Thomas
Merriam, with the laugh of a triumphant young lover.

But E