towards you... and who had looked forward to the time when... when...."

His eyes told the rest. He loved!

Susan forgot all the rules of reserve to which she had been trained.
What were cold conventionalities at such a moment? "Never! never!" she
said, throwing her arms about his neck and mingling her tears with his,
which were flowing freely. "Your country does not need your sword... but
it does need... your pen. Your poems will inspire... our soldiers....
The Oxbow Invincibles will march to victory, singing your songs.... If
you go... and if you... fall... O Gifted!... I... I... yes, I shall die
too!"

His love was returned. He was blest!

"Susan," he said, "my own Susan, I yield to your wishes at every
sacrifice. Henceforth they will be my law. Yes, I will stay and
encourage my brave countrymen to go forward to the bloody field. My
voice shall urge them on to the battle-ground. I will give my dearest
breath to stimulate their ardor.

"O Susan! My own, own Susan!"

While these interesting events had been going on beneath the modest roof
of the Widow Hopkins, affairs had been rapidly hastening to a similar
conclusion under the statelier shadow of The Poplars. Clement Lindsay
was so well received at his first visit that he ventured to repeat it
several times, with so short intervals that it implied something more
than a common interest in one of the members of the household. There was
no room for doubt who this could be, and Myrtle Hazard could not help
seeing that she was the object of his undisguised admiration. The belief
was now general in the village that Gifted Hopkins and Susan Posey
were either engaged or on the point of being so; and it was equally
understood that, whatever might be the explanation, she and her former
lover had parted company in an amicable manner.

Love works very strange transformations in young women. Sometimes it
leads them to try every mode of adding to their attractions,--their
whole thought is how to be most lovely in the eyes they would fill so
as to keep out all other images. Poor darlings! We smile at their little
vanities, as if they were very trivial things compared with the last
Congressman's speech or the great Election Sermon; but Nature knows well
what she is about. The maiden's ribbon or ruffle means a great deal more
for her than the judge's wig or the priest's surplice.

It was not in this way that the gentle emotion awaking in the breast
of Myrtle Hazard betrayed