shook hands with me
when you left me in New York."

For a short while he struggled with himself, striving to overcome the
unconquerable impulse which suddenly prompted him, and his face grew pallid
as hers as he walked hastily across the smooth grass and came back to her.
Her countenance was lifted toward the neighbouring hill, her thoughts
evidently far away, when he paused before her, and said unsteadily--

"Irene, my beloved! give yourself to me. Go with me into God's vineyard;
let us work together, and consecrate our lives to His service."

The mesmeric eyes gazed into his, full of wonder, and the rich ruby tint
fled from her lips as she pondered his words in unfeigned astonishment, and
shaking her regal head; answered slowly--

"Harvey, I am not worthy. I want your counsel, not your pity."

"Pity! you mistake me. If you have been ignorant so long, know now that I
have loved you from the evening you first sat in my study looking over my
foreign sketches. You were then a child, but I was a man, and I knew all
that you had so suddenly become to me. Because of this great disparity in
years, and because I dared not hope that one so tenderly nurtured could
ever brave the hardships of my projected life, I determined to quit New
York earlier than I had anticipated, and to bury a foolish memory in the
trackless forests of the far West. I ought to have known the fallacy of my
expectation; I have proved it since. Your face followed me; your eyes met
mine at every turn; your glittering hair swept on every breeze that touched
my cheek. Irene, you are young, and singularly beautiful, and I am a
grey-haired man, much, much older than yourself; but, if you live a
thousand years, you will never find such affection as I offer you now.
There is nothing on earth which would make me so happy as the possession of
your love. You are the only woman I have ever seen whom I even wish to call
my wife--the only woman who, I felt, could lend new charm to life, and make
my quiet hearth happier by her presence. Irene, will you share my future?
Can you give me what I ask?"

The temptation was powerful--the future he held out enticing indeed. The
strong, holy, manly love, the noble heart and head to guide her, the firm,
tender hand to support her, the constant, congenial, and delightful
companionship--all this passed swiftly through her mind; but, crushing all
in its grasp, came the memory of one whom she rarely met, but who held
undisputed s