at our first interview (what is the language of love but a language of
repetitions?). She answered, as she had answered me in her letter: the
difference in our rank made it her duty to discourage me.

"But if this difference did not exist," I said: "if we were both living
in the same rank, Margaret--"

She looked up quickly; then moved away a step or two, as I addressed her
by her Christian name.

"Are you offended with me for calling you Margaret so soon? I do not
think of you as Miss Sherwin, but as Margaret--are you offended with me
for speaking as I think?"

No: she ought not to be offended with me, or with anybody, for doing
that.

"Suppose this difference in rank, which you so cruelly insist on, did
not exist, would you tell me not to hope, not to speak then, as coldly
as you tell me now?"

I must not ask her that--it was no use--the difference in rank _did_
exist.

"Perhaps I have met you too late?--perhaps you are already--"

"No! oh, no!"--she stopped abruptly, as the words passed her lips. The
same lovely blush which I had before seen spreading over her face, rose
on it now. She evidently felt that she had unguardedly said too much:
that she had given me an answer in a case where, according to every
established love-law of the female code, I had no right to expect one.
Her next words accused me--but in very low and broken tones--of having
committed an intrusion which she should hardly have expected from a
gentleman in my position.

"I will regain your better opinion," I said, eagerly catching at the
most favourable interpretation of her last words, "by seeing you for the
next time, and for all times after, with your father's full permission.
I will write to-day, and ask for a private interview with him. I will
tell him all I have told you: I will tell him that you take a rank in
beauty and goodness, which is the highest rank in the land--a far higher
rank than mine--the only rank I desire." (A smile, which she vainly
strove to repress, stole charmingly to her lips.) "Yes, I will do this;
I will never leave him till his answer is favourable--and then what
would be yours? One word, Margaret; one word before I go--"

I attempted to take her hand a second time; but she broke from me, and
hurried into the house.

What more could I desire? What more could the modesty and timidity of a
young girl concede to me?

The moment I reached home, I wrote to Mr. Sherwin. The letter was
superscribed "Private;"