headache I have had since morning."

"Headache, dearest maiden!" echoed her lover.

"If you call it heartache, you will not misname it," said Catharine,
with a sigh, and proceeded to speak in a very serious tone.

"Henry," she said, "I am going perhaps to be as bold as I gave you
reason to think me this morning; for I am about to speak the first upon
a subject on which, it may well be, I ought to wait till I had to answer
you. But I cannot, after what has happened this morning, suffer my
feelings towards you to remain unexplained, without the possibility of
my being greatly misconceived. Nay, do not answer till you have heard me
out. You are brave, Henry, beyond most men, honest and true as the steel
you work upon--"

"Stop--stop, Catharine, for mercy's sake! You never said so much that
was good concerning me, save to introduce some bitter censure, of which
your praises were the harbingers. I am honest, and so forth, you would
say, but a hot brained brawler, and common sworder or stabber."

"I should injure both myself and you in calling you such. No, Henry, to
no common stabber, had he worn a plume in his bonnet and gold spurs on
his heels, would Catharine Glover have offered the little grace she has
this day voluntarily done to you. If I have at times dwelt severely upon
the proneness of your spirit to anger, and of your hand to strife, it is
because I would have you, if I could so persuade you, hate in yourself
the sins of vanity and wrath by which you are most easily beset. I have
spoken on the topic more to alarm your own conscience than to express
my opinion. I know as well as my father that, in these forlorn and
desperate days, the whole customs of our nation, nay, of every Christian
nation, may be quoted in favour of bloody quarrels for trifling causes,
of the taking deadly and deep revenge for slight offences, and the
slaughter of each other for emulation of honour, or often in mere sport.
But I knew that for all these things we shall one day be called into
judgment; and fain would I convince thee, my brave and generous friend,
to listen oftener to the dictates of thy good heart, and take less pride
in the strength and dexterity of thy unsparing arm."

"I am--I am convinced, Catharine" exclaimed Henry: "thy words shall
henceforward be a law to me. I have done enough, far too much, indeed,
for proof of my bodily strength and courage; but it is only from you,
Catharine, that I can learn a better way of think