his neck. The Magdalen of his innocent experience, a woman--with the
master-passion of her sex in possession of her heart already!

"Have you thought long of this, my dear?" he asked, as soon as he could
speak composedly. "Are you sure--?"

She answered the question before he could finish it.

"Sure I love him?" she said. "Oh, what words can say Yes for me, as I
want to say it? I love him--!" Her voice faltered softly; and her answer
ended in a sigh.

"You are very young. You and Frank, my love, are both very young."

She raised her head from his shoulder for the first time. The thought
and its expression flashed from her at the same moment.

"Are we much younger than you and mamma were?" she asked, smiling
through her tears.

She tried to lay her head back in its old position; but as she spoke
those words, her father caught her round the waist, forced her, before
she was aware of it, to look him in the face--and kissed her, with a
sudden outburst of tenderness which brought the tears thronging back
thickly into her eyes. "Not much younger, my child," he said, in low,
broken tones--"not much younger than your mother and I were." He put
her away from him, and rose from the seat, and turned his head aside
quickly. "Wait here, and compose yourself; I will go indoors and speak
to your mother." His voice trembled over those parting words; and he
left her without once looking round again.

She waited--waited a weary time; and he never came back. At last her
growing anxiety urged her to follow him into the house. A new timidity
throbbed in her heart as she doubtingly approached the door. Never had
she seen the depths of her father's simple nature stirred as they had
been stirred by her confession. She almost dreaded her next meeting
with him. She wandered softly to and fro in the hall, with a shyness
unaccountable to herself; with a terror of being discovered and spoken
to by her sister or Miss Garth, which made her nervously susceptible to
the slightest noises in the house. The door of the morning-room opened
while her back was turned toward it. She started violently, as she
looked round and saw her father in the hall: her heart beat faster and
faster, and she felt herself turning pale. A second look at him, as
he came nearer, re-assured her. He was composed again, though not so
cheerful as usual. She noticed that he advanced and spoke to her with a
forbearing gentleness, which was more like his manner to her mother