ver suspect my disguise, Amy?"

"No. Helen used to say that she felt something was wrong, but I never
did till the other night."

"Didn't I do that well? I give you my word it was all done on the spur
of the minute. I meant to speak soon, but had not decided how, when
you came out so sweetly with that confounded old cloak, of which I'd
no more need than an African has of a blanket. Then a scene I'd read
in a novel came into my head, and I just repeated it _con amore_. Was
I very pathetic and tragical. Amy?"

"I thought so then. It strikes me as ridiculous now, and I can't help
feeling sorry that I wasted so much pity on a man who--"

"Loves you with all his heart and soul. Did you cry and grieve over
me, dear little tender thing? and do you think now that I am a
heartless fellow, bent only on amusing myself at the expense of
others? It's not so; and you shall see how true and good and steady I
can be when I have any one to love and care for me. I've been alone so
long it's new and beautiful to be petted, confided in, and looked up
to by an angel like you."

He was in earnest now; she felt it, and her anger melted away like dew
before the sun.

"Poor boy! You will go home with us now, and let us take care of you
in quiet England. You'll play no more pranks, but go soberly to work
and do something that shall make me proud to be your cousin, won't
you?"

"If you'll change 'cousin' to 'wife' I'll be and do whatever you
please. Amy, when I was a poor, dying, Catholic foreigner you loved me
and would have married me in spite of everything. Now that I'm your
well, rich, Protestant cousin, who adores you as that Pole never
could, you turn cold and cruel. Is it because the romance is gone, or
because your love was only a girl's fancy, after all?"

"You deceived me and I can't forget it; but I'll try," was the soft
answer to his reproaches.

"Are you disappointed that I'm not a baron?"

"A little bit."

"Shall I be a count? They gave me a title in Poland, a barren honor,
but all they had to offer, poor souls, in return for a little blood.
Will you be Countess Zytomar and get laughed at for your pains, or
plain Mrs. Power, with a good old English name?"

"Neither, thank you; it's only a girlish fancy, which will soon be
forgotten. Does the baron love Helen?" asked Amy, abruptly.

"Desperately, and she?"

"I think he will be happy; she is not one to make confidantes, but I
know by her tenderness with me, her sadn