me, Mr Lorton," she replied, as suave as ever.--"But, you will
think differently by-and-by, and thank me for acting as I have done!
Your foolish fancy for my daughter will soon wear off; and you will live
to laugh at your present folly!"

"Never!" I said, determinedly, with a full heart.

"But you will promise not to speak to my daughter otherwise than as a
friend, when you see her again?" she urged:--not at all eagerly, but,
quite coolly, as she had spoken all along.

I would have preferred her having been angry, to that calm, irritating
impassiveness she displayed. She appeared to be a patent condenser of
all emotion.

"I suppose I must consent to your terms!"--I said,
despairingly.--"Although, Mrs Clyde, I give you fair warning that, when
I am in a position to renew my suit under better auspices, I will not
hold myself bound by this promise."

"Very well, Mr Lorton," she said, "I accept your proviso; but, when you
make your fortune it will be time enough to talk about it! In the
meanwhile, relying upon your solemn word as a gentleman not to renew
your offer to my daughter, or single her out with your attentions--which
might seriously interfere with her future prospects--I shall still be
pleased to welcome you _occasionally_"--with a marked emphasis on the
word--"at my house. What we have spoken about had, now, better be
forgotten by all parties as soon as possible, excepting your promise, of
course, _mind_!" and she bowed me out triumphantly--she victorious, I
thoroughly defeated.

What a sad, sad change had occurred since happy last night!

All my bright hopes were obscured, my ardent longings quenched by
fashionable matter-of-fact; and, Min herself had gone from me, without
one single parting word!

I was born to be unlucky, I think; everything went wrong with me now.
Like the lonely, hopeless hero in Longfellow's translation of Min's
favourite _Coplas de Manrique_, I might well exclaim in my misery--

"Let no one fondly dream again,
That Hope and all her shadowy train
Will not decay;
Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remembered like a tale that's told,
They pass away!"

How did I know, too, but, that, ere I saw my darling again, months might
elapse, during which time all thoughts of me might be banished from her
heart?

One proverb tells us that "absence makes the heart grow fonder;"
another, equally entitled to belief, warns anxious lovers that "out of
sight" is to be "out of mi