but sweetly
modulated voice, "I do love you--God alone knows how much!--but I am
too young to be your wife! I am only a child, not yet out of school. My
father would not hear of my marrying for several years to come. Can you
not wait?"

"It will be a hard task, Zuleika," answered the young man, excitedly;
"but, still, I will wait if you give me a lover's hope. Promise to marry
me when you are at liberty to do so, nay, swear it, and I shall be
satisfied!"

"I can neither promise nor swear it, Giovanni, without my father's
approval and consent. He is a wise, experienced and thoughtful man,
tender and mild to every one he loves, though hard and implacable to his
enemies. Speak to him of me, of your love, of your wish. He will listen
to you and he will not imperil his daughter's happiness. Go to him
without delay, and rest assured that whatever he says or does will be
for the best interests of us both."

She had released herself from his clasp and drawn slightly away from
him, not in terror, not in prudery, not in coquetry, but as a measure of
prudence. She felt intuitively that the wild, intense passion of her
Italian adorer must be kept within discreet limits.

"I cannot speak to your father yet," replied Giovanni, hesitatingly. "He
might listen to me, it is true; but he would treat our love as a mere
childish fancy that time could not fail to dim, if not obliterate. I am
deeply in earnest, Zuleika, and could not bear to be treated as a
thoughtless, headlong stripling, who did not know his own mind.
Ridicule, even in its mildest form, would fire my blood, fill me with
mad projects of revenge. I prefer not to ask your father for your hand
until certain of a favorable reception of my suit. You comprehend my
scruples, do you not, Zuleika? I love you too dearly not to win you when
I ask!"

"But you will speak to my father?" said the girl, in faltering tones.

"Yes, darling, oh! yes; but not until that hated convent school has
ceased to oppose its barriers between us. When you have left it, when
you have completed the education the Count designs for you, I will seek
your father and ask you of him for my wife; until then, until I can with
safety speak, at least promise me that you will love no other man,
encourage no other suitor."

"That I will do," responded the girl, joyously. "Rest assured I will
love no other man, encourage no other suitor!"

Unable to control himself, the Viscount again clasped the object of his