ce.

"It is disagreeable to me--very, to have any such subject talked
about at all. What would you think if I began to pay you foolish
personal compliments?"

"What I say isn't foolish; and there's a great difference. Clara,
I love you better than all the world put together."

She now looked at him; but still she did not believe it. It could
not be that after all her boastings she should have made so gross a
blunder. "I hope you do love me," she said; "indeed, you are bound to
do so, for you promised that you would be my brother."

"But that will not satisfy me now, Clara. Clara, I want to be your
husband."

"Will!" she exclaimed.

"Now you know it all; and if I have been too sudden, I must beg your
pardon."

"Oh, Will, forget that you have said this. Do not go on until
everything must be over between us."

"Why should anything be over between us? Why should it be wrong in me
to love you?"

"What will papa say?"

"Mr. Amedroz knows all about it already, and has given me his
consent. I asked him directly I had made up my own mind, and he told
me that I might go to you."

"You have asked papa? Oh dear, oh dear, what am I to do?"

"Am I so odious to you then?" As he said this he got up from his seat
and stood before her. He was a tall, well-built, handsome man, and he
could assume a look and mien that were almost noble when he was moved
as he was moved now.

"Odious! Do you not know that I have loved you as my cousin--that
I have already learned to trust you as though you were really my
brother? But this breaks it all."

"You cannot love me then as my wife?"

"No." She pronounced the monosyllable alone, and then he walked away
from her as though that one little word settled the question for him,
now and for ever. He walked away from her, perhaps a distance of two
hundred yards, as though the interview was over, and he were leaving
her. She, as she saw him go, wished that he would return that she
might say some word of comfort to him. Not that she could have said
the only word that would have comforted him. At the first blush of
the thing, at the first sound of the address which he had made to
her, she had been angry with him. He had disappointed her, and she
was indignant. But her anger had already melted and turned itself to
ruth. She could not but love him better, in that he had loved her so
well; but yet she could not love him with the love which he desired.

But he did not leave her. When he had