his low voice likewise trembling.

"I do."

"I would give more than that," he said, tenderly, "to
your keeping."

"Why," she enquired, with an unsuccessful attempt at
displaying wonder, "what is it that you would give to my
keeping?"

"My heart," the young man answered, his indolent eyes
lighting up in the gloaming. She said nothing, but hung
her head. The swarthy lover saw that she took no offence
at his declaration. Indeed he gathered from the quivering
of her red, moist lips, and from the tenderness in her
eye, that the avowal had more than pleased her. She
continued for a few seconds to look bashfully down at
the path; and then she raised her eyes and looked at him.
No more encouragement was needed.

"My beloved," he said, softly, and her head nestled upon
his shoulder. There in the shadow of a small colony of
poplars, on the verge of the boundless plain, shining
under the full, ripe moon, each plighted troth to the
other, and gave and received burning kisses. During the
sweet, fast-fleeting hours on the calm plain, in her
lover's arms, with no witness but the yellow moon, she
took no heed of the barriers that lay between a union
with her beloved; nor had he any foreboding of obstacles,
but heard and declared vows of love, supremely happy.

Woman is a sort of Pandora's Box, the lid whereof is
being forever raised, revealing the secrets within. The
plighted maiden was flushed of cheek and unusually bright
of eye when she returned to her home that evening. She
could give her guardian no satisfactory account of her
long absence, and told a very confused story about two
paths, "you know," that were "very much alike"; but that
"one led away around a poplar wood and out upon a portion
of the prairie" which she did "not know." Here the sweet
pet had got astray, and wandered around, although "it
was so silly," till the sound of the bells of St. Boniface
tolling ten had apprised her of the hour and also let
her know where she was. Her guardian took the explanation,
and contented himself with observing that he hoped it
would be her last evening upon the prairie, straying
around like an elk that had lost her mate.

"Jennie," said her sister, when they were alone, "you
have not been telling the truth. You did not get astray
on the prairie. Somebody has been courting you, and you
are in love with him."

"I am in love; and it is true that some one has been
courting me. I had intended to tell you all about it, m