Helen, and drinks up all the joys of our affection."

"Speak it forth, my gentle Helen," said Fleming. "What is it? The
secresy of our meeting? I have been meditating a resolution to address
your father, and this will confirm me. He can have no objections to my
suit, save that I am a friend of the Johnstones, and an open warrior;
while your cousin, whom you rejected before you saw me, is a concealed
mosstrooper, and a secret manslayer."

"There, there," muttered Helen, with trembling emotion--"there, Adam,
you have hit the bleeding part of my heart. I did not say to you that I
had rejected Blacket House before I saw you; but you were entitled to
make that supposition, because I told you that I never received his
love; but, alas! Adam, there is a distinction there; and, small as it
may seem, its effects may be great upon the fortunes and happiness of
your Helen. It is true I have never received his love; but it is equally
true that his love, having overgrown the thought of a possibility of
rejection, has overlooked my negative indications, and put down my
silence for consent. Yes, Adam, yes--even now Blacket House thinks I
love him; and, oh! the full responsibility of my apathy rises before me
like a threatening giant; my father and my mother have, I fear, taken
for granted that I am to become the wedded wife of my cousin."

"Helen, this does indeed surprise me," replied Kirkpatrick, thoughtfully
and sorrowfully. "I thought I had a sufficient objection to overcome on
the part of your father, when I had to conquer the prejudices of
clanship, and soothe his fears of my ardent spirit for the foray. But
this changes all, and my difficulties are increased from the height of
Kirconnel Lee to the towering Criffel." And he sat silent for a time,
and mused thoughtfully. "But why, my love," he continued, "have you
allowed this dangerous delusion to rest so long undisturbed, till it has
become a conviction that may only be removed with danger to us all?"

"Ask me not, Adam," replied she, with a full heart, "what I cannot
explain. While the tongue of Blacket House's friendship was changing to
love, I, whose thoughts were otherwise directed, perceived not the
change; and when the truth appeared to me, my love for my father and
mother, against the placid stream of whose life I have ever trembled to
throw the smallest pebble of a daughter's disobedience, prevented me,
day by day, from making the avowal that I could not love their ch