hand, and would have fervently kissed it, but suddenly
checked myself, and said,--

'But have you considered the consequences?'

'Hardly, I think, or I should not have offered myself to one too proud to
take me, or too indifferent to make his affection outweigh my worldly
goods.'

Stupid blockhead that I was!--I trembled to clasp her in my arms, but
dared not believe in so much joy, and yet restrained myself to say,--

'But if you should repent!'

'It would be your fault,' she replied: 'I never shall, unless you
bitterly disappoint me. If you have not sufficient confidence in my
affection to believe this, let me alone.'

'My darling angel--my own Helen,' cried I, now passionately kissing the
hand I still retained, and throwing my left arm around her, 'you never
shall repent, if it depend on me alone. But have you thought of your
aunt?' I trembled for the answer, and clasped her closer to my heart in
the instinctive dread of losing my new-found treasure.

'My aunt must not know of it yet,' said she. 'She would think it a rash,
wild step, because she could not imagine how well I know you; but she
must know you herself, and learn to like you. You must leave us now,
after lunch, and come again in spring, and make a longer stay, and
cultivate her acquaintance, and I know you will like each other.'

'And then you will be mine,' said I, printing a kiss upon her lips, and
another, and another; for I was as daring and impetuous now as I had been
backward and constrained before.

'No--in another year,' replied she, gently disengaging herself from my
embrace, but still fondly clasping my hand.

'Another year! Oh, Helen, I could not wait so long!'

'Where is your fidelity?'

'I mean I could not endure the misery of so long a separation.'

'It would not be a separation: we will write every day: my spirit shall
be always with you, and sometimes you shall see me with your bodily eye.
I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I desire to wait so
long myself, but as my marriage is to please myself, alone, I ought to
consult my friends about the time of it.'

'Your friends will disapprove.'

'They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,' said she, earnestly
kissing my hand; 'they cannot, when they know you, or, if they could,
they would not be true friends--I should not care for their estrangement.
Now are you satisfied?' She looked up in my face with a smile of
ineffable tenderness.

'Can I be other