you no harm. It was not necessary. I
would sooner pluck out my eye than hurt you. My uncle is an old man,--a
very old man. She cannot understand that it is better that we should
wait, than that I should have to think hereafter that I had killed him
by my unkindness."

"But he wants you to love some other girl."

"He cannot make me do that. All the world cannot change my heart, Kate.
If you can not trust me for that, then you do not love me as I love
you."

"Oh, Fred, you know I love you. I do trust you. Of course I can wait, if
I only know that you will come back to me. I only want to see you." He
was now leaning over her, and her cheek was pressed close to his. Though
she was talking of Mariana, and pretending to fear future misery, all
this was Elysium to her,--the very joy of Paradise. She could sit and
think of him now from morning to night, and never find the day an hour
too long. She could remember the words in which he made his oaths to
her, and cherish the sweet feeling of his arm round her body. To have
her cheek close to his was godlike. And then when he would kiss her,
though she would rebuke him, it was as though all heaven were in the
embrace.

"And now good-bye. One kiss, darling."

"No."

"Not a kiss when I am going?"

"I don't want you to go. Oh, Fred! Well;--there. Good-bye, my own, own,
own beloved one. You'll be here on Monday?"

"Yes,--on Monday."

"And be in the boat four hours, and here four minutes. Don't I know
you?" But he went without answering this last accusation.

"What shall we do, Kate, if he deceives us?" said the mother that
evening.

"Die. But I am sure he will not deceive us."

Neville, as he made his way down to Liscannor, where his gig was waiting
for him, did ask himself some serious questions about his adventure.
What must be the end of it? And had he not been imprudent? It may be
declared on his behalf that no idea of treachery to the girl ever
crossed his mind. He loved her too thoroughly for that. He did love
her--not perhaps as she loved him. He had many things in the world to
occupy his mind, and she had but one. He was almost a god to her. She to
him was simply the sweetest girl that he had ever as yet seen, and one
who had that peculiar merit that she was all his own. No other man had
ever pressed her hand, or drank her sweet breath. Was not such a love a
thousand times sweeter than that of some girl who had been hurried from
drawing-room to drawing-room, a