? He started,
paused, turned, and approached the balcony.

"'Why are you so cruel as to refuse to see me, after showing such
knightly devotion to your cause?' he asked, leaning on the side of the
balcony and looking earnestly in my face, on which the tear-drops were
still glittering.

"'I have not refused,' I answered hastily, 'but do not wait to talk with
me now. Mrs. Lynn would be much displeased; she would consider it very
improper. I pray you not to think me rude, but indeed I must retire.'

"I rose in an agony of terror, lest my step-mother should hear his
voice, and wreak her wrath on me.

"'Fear not,' he cried, catching my hand and detaining me. 'She is
engaged with company, who will not hasten away as I have done. I will
not stay long, nor utter one syllable that is not in harmony with the
holy tranquillity of the hour. I am a stranger in name, but is there not
something that tells you I was born to be your friend? I know there
is,--I see it in your ingenuous, confiding eye. Only answer me one
question,--Was it your _own will_, or the will of another that governed
your actions to-night?'

"'The will of another,' I answered. 'Let that be a sufficient reason for
urging your departure. If I am forbidden to see you in the parlor, I
shall certainly be upbraided for speaking with you here.'

"It was very imprudent in me to speak so freely of my step-mother's
conduct. No questions of his should have drawn from me such an
assertion. But I was so young and inexperienced, and I had been goaded
almost to madness by her stinging rebukes. It was natural that I should
wish to vindicate myself from the charge of rudeness her
misrepresentations would bring against me.

"'I find you in sadness and tears,' said he, in a low, gentle tone; so
low it scarcely rose above the murmuring waves. 'They should not be the
companions of beauty and youth. Let me be your friend,--let me teach you
how to banish them.'

"'No, no,' I cried, frightened at my own boldness in continuing the
conversation so long. 'You are not my friend, or you would not expose me
to censure. Indeed you are not.'

"'I am gone; but tell me one thing,--you are not a prisoner?'

"'O no; heaven forbid.'

"'You walk on the ramparts.'

"'Sometimes.'

"'Adieu,--we shall meet again.'

"He was gone, and sweetly lingered in my ear the echo of his gently
persuasive voice. He had vanished like the bark that had just glided
along the waters, and like that had le