eposterous
suggestion.

"Because I know it is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear
of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing
wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble
independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of
breath, a puff of empty air."

"I trust I have sufficient independence to do what is right and
sufficient prudence to avoid, if possible, the imputation of wrong," I
replied, with grave earnestness.

"Oh! upright judge!--oh! excellent young sage!" exclaimed Richard, with
mock reverence. "Wisdom becometh thee so well, I shall be tempted to
quarrel hereafter with thy smiles. But seriously, Gabriella, I crave
permission to walk courteously home with you this evening, for it is the
last of my vacation. To-morrow I leave you, and it will be months before
we meet again."

"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I,
deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps
your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least."

"No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or
less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it
back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou
knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the
man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,--if I may look forward to the day
when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,--I
shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that
I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw
before."

"I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and
earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much
happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years
hence to talk of such things."

"Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,--the
season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,--oh, daughter of
poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the
sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of
Paradise?"

"I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his
metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new
channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures."

"Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade t