nation; so I escaped
from my room as soon as I could do so without disturbing your household;
and I have been bathing, which refreshes me always more than slumber.'

'Well, I could not resign my sleep, were it only for the sake of my
dreams.'

'Pleasant I trust they were. "Rosy dreams and slumbers light" are for
ladies as fair as you.'

'I am grateful that I always fulfil the poet's wish; and what is more, I
wake only to gather roses: see here!'

She extended to him a flower.

'I deserve it,' said Ferdinand, 'for I have not neglected your first
gift;' and he offered her the rose she had given him the first day of
his visit. ''Tis shrivelled,' he added, 'but still very sweet, at least
to me.'

'It is mine now,' said Henrietta Temple.

'Ah! you will throw it away.'

'Do you think me, then, so insensible?'

'It cannot be to you what it is to me,' replied Ferdinand.

'It is a memorial,' said Miss Temple.

'Of what, and of whom?' enquired Ferdinand.

'Of friendship and a friend.'

''Tis something to be Miss Temple's friend.'

'I am glad you think so. I believe I am very vain, but certainly I like
to be-----liked.'

'Then you can always gain your wish without an effort.'

'Now I think we are very good friends,' said Miss Temple, 'considering
we have known each other so short a time. But then papa likes you so
much.'

'I am honoured as well as gratified by the kindly dispositions of so
agreeable a person as Mr. Temple. I can assure his daughter that the
feeling is mutual. Your father's opinion influences you?'

'In everything. He has been so kind a father, that it would be worse
than ingratitude to be less than devoted to him.'

'Mr. Temple is a very enviable person.'

'But Captain Armine knows the delight of a parent who loves him. I love
my father as you love your mother.'

'I have, however, lived to feel that no person's opinion could influence
me in everything; I have lived to find that even filial love, and God
knows mine was powerful enough, is, after all, but a pallid moonlight
beam, compared with------'

'See! my father kisses his hand to us from the window. Let us run and
meet him.'

CHAPTER XII.

_Containing an Ominous Incident_.

THE last adieus are bidden: Ferdinand is on his road to Armine,
flying from the woman whom he adores, to meet the woman to whom he is
betrothed. He reined in his horse as he entered the park. As he slowly
approached his home, he could not avoid