k of somebody else. When you are glad you show it in your
eyes, and now they are as still as violets under icicles. I think you
might love me a little, at least as much as a dog."

"Hush! I do love you, but I don't choose to tell it to everybody in
Montreal."

Mr. Huntingdon's entrance diverted the conversation, and Irene was glad to
escape to her own room.

"Your cousin seems to be very fond of you," observed Louisa, as she
upbraided her hair.

"He is very impulsive and demonstrative, that is all."

"How handsome he is!"

"Do you think so, really? Take care, Louisa! I will tell him, and, by way
of crushing his vanity, add '_de gustibus, etc., etc., etc._'"

"How old is he?"

"In his twentieth year."

From that time the cousins were thrown constantly together; wherever they
went Hugh took charge of Irene, while Mr. Huntingdon gave his attention to
Louisa. But the eagle eye was upon his daughter's movements; he watched her
countenance, weighed her words, tried to probe her heart. Week after week
he found nothing tangible. Hugh was gay, careless; Irene, equable, but
reserved. Finally they turned their faces homeward, and in October found
themselves once more in New York. Mr. Huntingdon prepared to return South
and Hugh to sail for Europe, while Irene remained at the hotel until the
morning of her cousin's departure.

A private parlour adjoined the room she occupied, and here he came to say
farewell. She knew that he had already had a long conversation with her
father, and as he threw himself on the sofa and seized one of her hands,
she instinctively shrank from him.

"Irene, here is my miniature. I wanted you to ask for it, but I see that
you won't do it. I know very well that you will not value it one-thousandth
part as much as I do your likeness here on my watch-chain; but perhaps it
will remind you of me sometimes. How I shall want to see you before I come
home! You know you belong to me. Uncle gave you to me, and when I come back
from Europe we will be married. We are both very young, I know; but it has
been settled so long. Irie, my beauty, I wish you would love me more; you
are so cold. Won't you try?"

He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her face hastily away and
answered resolutely--

"No, I can't love you other than as my cousin; I would not, if I could. I
do not think it would be right, and I won't promise to try. Father has no
right to give me to you, or to anybody else. I tell you now I