her companion.

She dropped her hand, raised her head, and looked at him a moment: he
thought he saw the glow of tears in her eyes. Then she sank back upon
the sofa with her face in the shadow of the mantel-piece.

"I don't understand you, Mr. Bruce," said she.

"Ah, Elizabeth! am I such a poor speaker. How shall I make it plain?
When I saw your friends leave home half an hour ago, and reflected that
you would probably be alone, I determined to go right in and have a talk
with you that I've long been wanting to have. But first I walked half a
mile up the road, thinking hard,--thinking how I should say what I had
to say. I made up my mind to nothing, but that somehow or other I should
say it I would trust,--I _do_ trust to your frankness, kindness, and
sympathy, to a feeling corresponding to my own. Do you understand that
feeling? Do you know that I love you? I do, I do, I do! You _must_ know
it. If you don't, I solemnly swear it. I solemnly ask you, Elizabeth, to
take me for your husband."

While Bruce said these words, he rose, with their rising passion, and
came and stood before Lizzie. Again she was motionless.

"Does it take you so long to think?" said he, trying to read her
indistinct features; and he sat down on the sofa beside her and took her
hand.

At last Lizzie spoke.

"Are you sure," said she, "that you love me?"

"As sure as that I breathe. Now, Elizabeth, make me as sure that I am
loved in return."

"It seems very strange, Mr. Bruce," said Lizzie.

"What seems strange? Why should it? For a month I've been trying, in a
hundred dumb ways, to make it plain; and now, when I swear it, it only
seems strange!"

"What do you love me for?"

"For? For yourself, Elizabeth."

"Myself? I am nothing."

"I love you for what you are,--for your deep, kind heart,--for being so
perfectly a woman."

Lizzie drew away her hand, and her lover rose and stood before her
again. But now she looked up into his face, questioning when she should
have answered, drinking strength from his entreaties for her replies.
There he stood before her, in the glow of the firelight, in all his
gentlemanhood, for her to accept or reject. She slowly rose and gave him
the hand she had withdrawn.

"Mr. Bruce, I shall be very proud to love you," she said.

And then, as if this effort was beyond her strength, she half staggered
back to the sofa again. And still holding her hand, he sat down beside
her. And there they were still sit