wealth, and one that any girl in
the world would love?'"

"Psha!" he exclaimed.

"That is what I said to myself." Then she paused, and looking into
her face he saw that there was a glimmer of a tear in each eye. "One
that any girl must love when asked for her love;--because he is so
sweet, so good, and so pleasant."

"I know that you are chaffing."

"Then I went on asking myself questions. And is it possible that
I, who by all his friends will be regarded as a nobody, who am an
American,--with merely human workaday blood in my veins,--that such a
one as I should become his wife? Then I told myself that it was not
possible. It was not in accordance with the fitness of things. All
the dukes in England would rise up against it, and especially that
duke whose good-will would be imperative."

"Why should he rise up against it?"

"You know he will. But I will go on with my story of myself. When I
had settled that in my mind, I just cried myself to sleep. It had
been a dream. I had come across one who in his own self seemed to
combine all that I had ever thought of as being lovable in a man--"

"Isabel!"

"And in his outward circumstances soared as much above my thoughts
as the heaven is above the earth. And he had whispered to me soft,
loving, heavenly words. No;--no, you shall not touch me. But you
shall listen to me. In my sleep I could be happy again and not see
the barriers. But when I woke I made up my mind. 'If he comes to me
again,' I said--'if it should be that he should come to me again, I
will tell him that he shall be my heaven on earth,--if,--if,--if the
ill-will of his friends would not make that heaven a hell to both of
us.' I did not tell you quite all that."

"You told me nothing but that I was to come again in three months."

"I said more than that. I bade you ask your father. Now you have come
again. You cannot understand a girl's fears and doubts. How should
you? I thought perhaps you would not come. When I saw you whispering
to that highly-born well-bred beauty, and remembered what I was
myself, I thought that--you would not come."

"Then you must love me."

"Love you! Oh, my darling!--No, no, no," she said, as she retreated
from him round the corner of the billiard-table, and stood guarding
herself from him with her little hands. "You ask if I love you. You
are entitled to know the truth. From the sole of your foot to the
crown of your head I love you as I think a man would wish to be
lo