we were alone. I had been heated, as though with wine,
and had probably talked incoherently. The conversation turned on that
never-failing theme, love. She delighted to hear me speak on that subject;
she said I spoke eloquently. If eloquence consists in earnestness, no
doubt I did. It began in sportiveness, but before long became deeply
serious and interesting.

'And you do not believe, my grave cousin,' said she, in her own
half-jesting, wholly earnest way, 'that a woman can love as deeply and
long as the man who loves her?'

'Bah!' said I, bitterly, 'women sometimes, like men, are revengeful,
proud, or ambitious, but it is on a smaller scale. Every thing about them,
every feeling and impulse is on a small scale. Very good objects they make
for men to love; because, when one _will_ be such a fool, it doesn't much
matter where he places his affection.'

The poor girl looked grieved, but responded with a semblance of gaiety
nevertheless: 'Ah, you think so now, but you will be just such a fool
yourself, one of these days; and then you will find out that it is
necessary for a woman to have a soul; and more than that--that she has
one.'

'Much obliged for your flattering opinion,' said I. 'But see here, my
bonny Jane, did it never enter into your innocent little heart to think
how _you_ would love?'

'Oh yes,' she answered quickly; 'but that is all guess-work. I don't know,
because I haven't yet found a man to my taste.'

Of course I knew that I could not be to her taste; but a plain man does
not like to be told that he is ugly, though he may be perfectly conscious
of the fact. And so this avowal, which was made with the most unthinking
honesty and simplicity, while it added weight to my despair, by a very
usual consequence, made me desperate.

'You are certain,' I asked, after a pause, 'that you do not know what love
is by experience?'

'Perfectly,' she answered, half laughing.

'And that you mean to know, some time?'

'To be sure,' said she, 'when the right man and the right time come.'

'I do not know,' said I, beginning slowly and calmly; but before the
sentence was half completed, my voice and thoughts had escaped from under
my control; 'I do not know who the right man for you may be, but I--_I_
love you--love you--love you!'

She looked at me for a few seconds, with a countenance filled with
astonishment, not unmingled with alarm. She would have thought it a jest;
but my manner probably convinced her th