t _is_ then a woman?"

"A very young, a very beautiful, a very wretched, girl!" he answered.

"And you love her?" she said, with an effort at firmness, which itself
proved the violence of her emotion.

"By your life! Julia, I do not!" he replied, with an energy, that spoke
well for the truth of his asseveration.

"Nor ever loved her?"

"Nor ever--_loved_ her, Julia." But he hesitated a little as he said it;
and laid a peculiar stress on the word loved, which did not escape the
anxious ears of the lovely being, whose whole soul hung suspended on his
speech.

"Why not?" she asked, after a moment's pause, "if she be so very young,
and so very beautiful?"

"I might answer, because I never saw her, 'till I loved one more
beautiful. But--"

"But you will not!" she interrupted him vehemently. "Oh! if you love me?
if you _do_ love me, Paullus, do not answer me so."

"And wherefore not?" he asked her, half smiling, though little mirthful in
his heart, at her impetuosity.

"Because if you descend to flatter," answered the fair girl quietly, "I
shall be sure that you intended to deceive me."

"It would be strictly true, notwithstanding. For though, as she says, we
met years ago, she was but a child then; and, since that time, I never saw
her until four or five days ago--"

"And since then, how often?" Julia again interrupted him; for, in the
intensity of her anxiety, she could not wait the full answer to one
question, before another suggested itself to her mind, and found voice at
the instant.

"Once, Julia."

"Only once?"

"Once only, by the Gods!"

"You have not told me wherefore it was, that you never loved her!"

"Have I not told you, that I never saw her till a few days, a few hours, I
might have said, ago? and does not that tell you wherefore, Julia?"

"But there is something more. There is another reason. Oh! tell me, I
adjure you, by all that you hold dearest, tell me!"

"There is another reason. I told you that she was very young, and very
beautiful; but, Julia, she was also very guilty!"

"Guilty!" exclaimed the fair girl, blushing fiery red, "guilty of loving
you! Oh! Paullus! Paullus!" and between shame, and anger, and the
repulsive shock that every pure and feminine mind experiences in hearing
of a sister's frailty, she buried her face in her hands, and wept aloud.

"Guilty, before I ever heard her name, or knew that she existed," answered
the young man, fervently; but his heart smote him so