ery different magnet
first kept him from the Canadas, I am sure.--We treated each other
generously, Miss Effingham, and had no concealments, during that long
and anxious night, when all expected that the day would dawn on our
captivity. Templemore is too manly and honest to deny his former
desire to obtain you for a wife, and I think even he would admit that
it depended entirely on yourself to be so, or not."

"This is an act of self-humiliation that he is not called onto
perform," Eve hurriedly replied; "such allusions, now, are worse than
useless, and they might pain my cousin, were she to hear them."

"I am mistaken in my friend's character, if he leave his betrothed in
any doubt, on this subject. Five minutes of perfect frankness now,
might obviate years of distrust, hereafter."

And would you Mr. Powis, avow a former weakness of this sort, to the
woman you had finally selected for your wife?"

"I ought not to quote myself for authority, for or against such a
course, since I have never loved but one, and her with a passion too
single and too ardent ever to admit of competition. Miss Effingham,
there would be something worse than affectation--it would be trifling
with one who is sacred in my eyes, were I now to refrain from
speaking explicitly, although what I am about to say is forced from
me by circumstances, rather than voluntary, and is almost uttered
without a definite object. Have I your permission to proceed?'

"You can scarcely need a permission, being the master of your own
secrets, Mr. Powis."

Paul, like all men agitated by strong passion, was inconsistent, and
far from just; and Eve felt the truth of this, even while her mind
was ingeniously framing excuses for his weaknesses. Still, the
impression that she was about to listen to a declaration that
possibly ought never to be made, weighed upon her, and caused her to
speak with more coldness than she actually felt. As she continued
silent, however, the young man saw that it had become indispensably
necessary to be explicit.

"I shall not detain you, Miss Effingham, perhaps vex you," he said,
"with the history of those early impressions, which have gradually
grown upon me, until they have become interwoven with my very
existence. We met, as you know, at Vienna, for the first time. An
Austrian of rank, to whom I had become known through some fortunate
circumstances, introduced me into the best society of that capital,
in which I found you the admira