other and I talked of no one but Olivia. The present rapture so
completely eclipsed the coming sorrow, that I forgot how soon it would
be upon me. I remember now that my mother neither by word nor sign
suffered me to be reminded of her illness. She listened to my
rhapsodies, smiling with her divine, pathetic smile. There is no love,
no love at all, like that of a mother!

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

A BRIGHT BEGINNING.

Not the next day, which was wet and windy, but the day following, did
Captain Carey take me over to Sark. I had had time to talk over all my
plans for the future with my mother, and I bore with me many messages
from her to the girl I was about to ask to become my wife.

Coxcomb as I was, there was no doubt in my mind that I could win Olivia.

To explain my coxcombry is not a very easy task. I do not suppose I had
a much higher sense of my own merits than such as is common to man. I
admit I was neither shy nor nervous on the one hand, but on the other I
was not blatantly self-conceited. It is possible that my course through
life hitherto--first as an only son adored by his mother, and secondly
as an exceedingly eligible _parti_ in a circle where there were very few
young men of my rank and family, and where there were twenty or more
marriageable women to one unmarried man--had a great deal to do with my
feeling of security with regard to this unknown, poor, and friendless
stranger. But, added to this, there was Olivia's own frank, unconcealed
pleasure in seeing me, whenever I had had a chance of visiting her, and
the freedom with which she had always conversed with me upon any topic
except that of her own mysterious position. I was sure I had made a
favorable impression upon her. In fact, when I had been talking with
her, I had given utterance to brighter and clearer thoughts than I had
ever been conscious of before. A word from her, a simple question,
seemed to touch the spring of some hidden treasure of my brain, and I
had surprised myself by what I had been enabled to say to her. It was
this, probably more than her beauty, which had drawn me to her and made
me happy in her companionship. No, I had never shown myself
contemptible, but quite the reverse, in her presence. No doubt or
misgiving assailed me as the yacht carried us out of St. Sampson's
Harbor.

Swiftly we ran across, with a soft wind drifting over the sea and
playing upon our faces, and a long furrow lying in the wake of our bo