field, "Dangerous man to play little games with!" It had
brought upon her this letter of declaration, proposal, entreaty.

This letter was the man's life in her hands, and safe, of course. But
surely it was a proof that the man loved her?

Aminta was in her five-and-twentieth year; when the woman who is
uncertain of the having been loved, and she reputed beautiful,
desirable, is impelled by a sombre necessity to muse on a declaration,
and nibble at an idea of a test. If "a dangerous man to play little
games with," he could scarcely be dangerous to a woman having no love
for him at all. It meant merely that he would soon fall to writing
letters like this, and he could not expect an answer to it. But her
heart really thanked him, and wished the poor gentleman to take its dumb
response as his reward, for being the one sole one who had loved her.

Aminta dwelt on "the one sole one." Lord Ormont's treatment had
detached her from any belief in love on his part; and the schoolboy, now
ambitions to become a schoolmaster, was behind the screen unlikely to
be lifted again by a woman valuing her pride of youth, though he
had--behold our deceptions!--the sympathetic face entirely absent from
that of Mr. Adolphus Morsfield, whom the world would count quite as
handsome--nay, it boasted him. He enjoyed the reputation of a killer
of ladies. Women have odd tastes, Aminta thought, and examined the
gentleman's handwriting. It pleased her better. She studied it till the
conventional phrases took a fiery hue, and came at her with an invasive
rush.

The letter was cast back into the box, locked up; there an end to it, or
no interdiction of sleep.

Sleep was a triumph. Aminta's healthy frame rode her over petty
agitations of a blood uninflamed, as lightly as she swam the troubled
sea-waters her body gloried to cleave. She woke in the morning peaceful
and mildly reflective, like one who walks across green meadows. Only by
degrees, by glimpses, was she drawn to remember the trotting, cantering,
galloping, leaping of an active heart during night. We cannot, men
or woman, control the heart in sleep at night. There had been wild
leapings. Night will lead an unsatisfied heart of a woman, by way of
sleep, to scale black mountains, jump jagged chasms. Sleep is a horse
that laughs at precipices and abysses. We bid women, moreover, be
all heart. They are to cultivate their hearts, pay much heed to their
hearts. The vast realm of feeling is open to