inds a loving couple, of whom one is a torrent of
persuasion, their differings are likely to make the other resemble a log
of the torrent. It is borne along; it dreams of a distant corner of the
way for a determined stand; it consents to its whirling in anticipation
of an undated hour when it will no longer be neutral.

There may be, moreover, while each has the key of the fellow breast, a
mutually sensitive nerve to protest against intrusion of light or sound.
The cloud over the name of their girl could now strike Nataly and Victor
dumb in their taking of counsel. She divined that his hint had encouraged
him to bring the crisis nearer, and he that her comprehension had become
tremblingly awake. They shrank, each of them, the more from an end
drawing closely into view. All subjects glooming off or darkening up to
it were shunned by them verbally, and if they found themselves entering
beneath that shadow, conversation passed to an involuntary gesture, more
explicit with him, significant of the prohibited, though not
acknowledging it.

All the stronger was it Victor's purpose, leaping in his fashion to the
cover of action as an escape from perplexity, to burn and scheme for the
wedding of their girl--the safe wedding of that dearest, to have her
protected, secure, with the world warm about her. And he well knew why
his Nataly had her look of a closed vault (threatening, if opened, to
thunder upon Life) when he dropped his further hints. He chose to call it
feminine inconsistency, in a woman who walked abroad with a basket of
marriage-ties for the market on her arm. He knew that she would soon have
to speak the dark words to their girl; and the idea of any doing of it,
caught at his throat. Reasonably she dreaded the mother's task;
pardonably indeed. But it is for the mother to do, with a girl. He
deputed it lightly to the mother because he could see himself stating the
facts to a son. 'And, my dear boy, you will from this day draw your five
thousand a year, and we double it on the day of your marriage, living at
Lakelands or where you will.'

His desire for his girl's protection by the name of one of our great
Families, urged him to bind Nataly to the fact, with the argument, that
it was preferable for the girl to hear their story during her green early
youth, while she reposed her beautiful blind faith in the discretion of
her parents, and as an immediate step to the placing of her hand in a
husband's. He feared that h