ld. Is it wrong of me to say so?"

"Oh, dear, no;--not wrong at all. How can it be wrong?" He did
not tell her that he also had got all he wanted; but his lack
of enthusiasm in this respect did not surprise her, or at first
even vex her. She had always known him to be a man careful of his
words,--knowing their value,--not speaking with hurried rashness as
would her dear cousin Will. And she doubted whether, after all, such
hurried words mean as much as words which are slower and calmer.
After all his heat in love and consequent disappointment, Will
Belton had left her apparently well contented. His fervour had been
short-lived. She loved her cousin dearly, and was so very glad that
his fervour had been short-lived!

"When you asked me, I could but tell you the truth," she said,
smiling at him.

The truth is very well, but he would have liked it better had the
truth come to him by slower degrees. When his aunt had told him to
marry Clara Amedroz, he had been at once reconciled to the order by a
feeling on his own part that the conquest of Clara would not be too
facile. She was a woman of value, not to be snapped up easily,--or by
any one. So he had thought then; but he began to fancy now that he
had been wrong in that opinion.

The walk back to the house was not of itself very exciting, though
to Clara it was a short period of unalloyed bliss. No doubt had then
come upon her to cloud her happiness, and she was "wrapped up in
measureless content." It was well that they should both be silent
at such a moment. Only yesterday had been buried their dear old
friend,--the friend who had brought them together, and been so
anxious for their future happiness! And Clara Amedroz was not a young
girl, prone to jump out of her shoes with elation because she had got
a lover. She could be steadily happy without many immediate words
about her happiness. When they had reached the house, and were once
more together in the drawing-room, she again gave him her hand, and
was the first to speak. "And you; are you contented?" she asked. Who
does not know the smile of triumph with which a girl asks such a
question at such a moment as that?

"Contented?--well,--yes; I think I am," he said.

But even those words did not move her to doubt. "If you are," she
said, "I am. And now I will leave you till dinner, that you may think
over what you have done."

"I had thought about it before, you know," he replied. Then he
stooped over her and kis