ping within the walls. But when
the knock was repeated, with a little more emphasis, she took the lamp,
entered the narrow passage, closing the door softly after her, removed
the massy bar, certain of beholding the countenance which was the
sunlight of her soul. What was her astonishment and terror, on seeing
instead the never-to-be-forgotten face and form of Bryant Clinton. Had
she seen one of those awful figures which Miss Thusa used to describe,
she would scarcely have been more appalled than by the unexpected sight
of this transcendently handsome young man.

"Is terror the only emotion I can inspire--after so long an absence,
too?" he asked, seizing her hand in both his, and riveting upon her his
wonderfully expressive, dark blue eyes. "Forgive me if I have alarmed
you, but forbidden your father's house, and knowing your presence here,
I have dared to come hither that I might see you one moment before I
leave these regions, perhaps forever."

"Impossible, Mr. Clinton," cried Helen, recovering, in some measure,
from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's
revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a
sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I
cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that
enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house,
it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering
a hasty "Good-night," and was about to close the door, when Clinton
glided in, shutting the door after him.

"You must hear me, Helen," said he, in that sweet, low voice, peculiar
to himself. "Had it not been for you I should never have returned. I
told you once that I loved you, but if I loved you then I must adore you
now. You are ten thousand times more lovely. Helen, you do not know how
charming, how beautiful you are. You do not know the enthusiastic
devotion, the deathless passion you have inspired."

"I cannot conceive of such depths of falsehood," exclaimed Helen, her
timid eyes kindling with indignation; "all this have you said to Mittie,
and far more, and she, mistaken girl, believes you true."

"I deceived myself, alas!" cried he, in a tone of bitter sorrow. "I
thought I loved her, for I had not yet seen and known her gentler,
lovelier sister. Forgive me, Helen--love is not the growth of our will.
'Tis a flower that springs spontaneously in the human heart, of
celestial frag