loquence of his enthusiastic nature, Edward pleaded his
cause, and, need it be said, not in vain. Lilla neither wished nor
sought to conceal her feelings, and long, long did those two young and
animated beings remain in sweet and heartfelt commune beside that lowly
grave.

"What place so fitted where to pledge our troth, my Lilla, as by my
mother's resting-place?" said Edward. "Would that she could look upon us
now and smile her blessing."

Happily indeed flew those evening hours unheeded by the young lovers.
Grahame, on the entrance of his happy child, folded her to his bosom;
his blessing descended on her head, mingled with tears, which sprung at
once from a father's love and self-reproach at all the suffering his
irritability had occasioned her. And that evening Lilla indeed felt that
all her sorrows, all her struggles, all her dutiful forbearance, were
rewarded. Not only was her long-cherished love returned, not only did
she feel that in a few short months she should be her Edward's own, that
he, the brave, the gallant, honoured sailor, had chosen her in
preference to any of those fairer and nobler maidens with whom he had
so often associated, but her father, her dear father, was more like
himself than he had been since her mother's death. He looked, he spoke
the Montrose Grahame we have known him in former years. Edward had ever
been a favourite with him, but he and Lilla had been so intimate from
their earliest childhood, that he had never thought of him as a son; and
when the truth was known, so truly did Grahame rejoice, that the
bitterness in his earthly cup was well-nigh drowned by its present
sweetness.

Innumerable were the questions both Lilla and Grahame had to ask, and
Edward answered all with that peculiar joyousness which ever threw a
charm around him. The adventures of his voyage, his dangers, the
extraordinary means of his long-lost uncle being instrumental in his
preservation, Lord Delmont's varied tale, all was animatedly discussed
till a late hour. A smile was on Grahame's lip, as his now awakened eye
recalled the drooping spirits and fading cheek of his Lilla during those
three months of suspense, when Captain Fortescue was supposed drowned,
and the equally strange and sudden restoration to health and
cheerfulness when Ellen's letter was received, detailing her brother's
safety. Lilla's streaming eyes were hid on her lover's shoulder as he
detailed his danger, but quickly her tears were kissed