e was asking herself that question for the hundredth time, as she
sat looking out on the twilight landscape, when she heard a well-known
voice approaching, singing, "C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, qui fait
le monde a la ronde"; and a moment after she was folded in Gerald's
arms, and he was calling her endearing names in a polyglot of
languages, which he had learned from her and Floracita.

"So you are not very angry with me for going there and finding out
your secret," inquired she.

"I _was_ angry," he replied; "but while I was coming to you all my
anger melted away."

"And you do love me as well as ever," said she. "I thought perhaps so
many handsome ladies would fall in love with you, that I should not be
your Rosa _munda_ any more."

"I have met many handsome ladies," responded he, "but never one worthy
to bear the train of my Rosa Regina."

Thus the evening passed in conversation more agreeable to them than
the wittiest or the wisest would have been. But it has been well said,
"the words of lovers are like the rich wines of the South,--they are
delicious in their native soil, but will not bear transportation."

The next morning he announced the necessity of returning to the North
to complete some business, and said he must, in the mean time, spend
some hours at the plantation. "And Rosa dear," added he, "I shall
really be angry with you if you go there again unless I am with you."

She shook her finger at him, and said, with one of her most expressive
smiles: "Ah, I see through you! You are planning some more pleasant
surprises for me. How happy we shall be there! As for that rich uncle
of yours, if you will only let me see him, I will do my best to make
him love me, and perhaps I shall succeed."

"It would be wonderful if you did not, you charming enchantress,"
responded he. He folded her closely, and looked into the depths of her
beautiful eyes with intensity, not unmingled with sadness.

A moment after he was waving his hat from the shrubbery; and so he
passed away out of her sight. His sudden reappearance, his lavish
fondness, his quick departure, and the strange earnestness of his
farewell look, were remembered like the flitting visions of a dream.

CHAPTER XI.

In less than three weeks after that tender parting, an elegant
barouche stopped in front of Magnolia Lawn, and Mr. Fitzgerald
assisted a very pretty blonde young lady to alight from it. As
she entered the parlor, wavering gleams