must acknowledge; but she is not malicious, Clinton. With all her
eccentricities, she has some sterling virtues. If you could only see
her inspired, and hear one of her _powerful_ tales!"

"If you ever induce him to go there a second time!" exclaimed Mittie,
withdrawing herself from the arm with which he had encircled her waist,
and giving him a glance from her dark, bright eyes, that might have
scorched him, it was so intensely, dazzlingly angry.

"Believe me," said Clinton, "no inducement could tempt me again to a
place associated with painful remembrances in your mind."

He had not seen the glance, for he was walking on the other side, and
when she turned towards him, in answer to his soothing remark, the
starry moon of night is not more darkly beautiful or resplendent than
her face.

So he told her when Louis left them at the gate leading to their
dwelling, and so he told her again when they were walking alone together
in the star-bright night.

"Why do they talk to me of Helen?" said he, and his voice stole through
the stilly air as gently as the falling dew. "What can she be, in
comparison with you? Little did I think Louis had another sister so
transcendent, when I saw you standing on the rustic bridge, the most
radiant vision that ever beamed on the eye of mortal. You remember that
evening. All the sunbeams of Heaven gathered around _you_, the focus of
the golden firmament."

"Louis loves me not as he does Helen," replied Mittie, her heart
bounding with rapture at his glowing praises, "no one does. Even you,
who now profess to love me beyond all created beings, if Helen came,
might be lured by _her_ attractions to forget all you have been
breathing into my ears."

"I confess I should like to see one whose attractions _you_ can fear.
She must be superlatively lovely."

"She is not beautiful nor lovely, Clinton. No one ever called her so.
Fear! I never knew the sensation of fear. It is not fear that she could
inspire, but a stronger, deeper passion."

He felt the arm tremble that was closely locked in his, and he could see
her lip curl like a rose-leaf fluttering in the breeze.

"Speak, Mittie, and tell me what you mean. I can think of but one
passion now, and that the strongest and deepest that ever ruled the
heart of man."

"I cannot describe my meaning," replied Mittie, pausing under a tree
that shaded their path, and leaning against its trunk; "but I can feel
it. Till you came, I knew not what f