hed. "Come and take a walk," said Harry.

"I think I will go to mamma." Florence had seen her mother's eye fixed
upon her.

"Oh, come, that won't do at all," said Harry, who had already got her
hand within his arm. "A fellow is always entitled to five minutes, and
then I am down for the next waltz."

"Oh no!"

"But I am, and you can't get out of it now. Oh, Florence, will you
answer me a question,--one question? I asked it you before, and you did
not vouchsafe me any answer."

"You asked me no question," said Florence, who remembered to the last
syllable every word that had been said to her on that occasion.

"Did I not? I am sure you knew what it was that I intended to ask."
Florence could not but think that this was quite another thing. "Oh,
Florence, can you love me?" Had she given her ears for it she could not
have told him the truth then, on the spur of the moment. Her mother's
eye was, she knew, watching her through the door-way all the way across
from the other room. And yet, had her mother asked her, she would have
answered boldly that she did love Harry Annesley, and intended to love
him for ever and ever with all her heart. And she would have gone
farther if cross-questioned, and have declared that she regarded him
already as her lord and master. But now she had not a word to say to
him. All she knew was that he had now pledged himself to her, and that
she intended to keep him to his pledge. "May I not have one word," he
said,--"one word?"

What could he want with a word more? thought Florence. Her silence now
was as good as any speech. But as he did want more she would, after her
own way, reply to him. So there came upon his arm the slightest possible
sense of pressure from those sweet fingers, and Harry Annesley was on a
sudden carried up among azure-tinted clouds into the farthest heaven of
happiness. After a moment he stood still, and passed his fingers through
his hair and waved his head as a god might do it. She had now made to
him a solemn promise than which no words could be more binding. "Oh,
Florence," he exclaimed, "I must have you alone with me for one moment."
For what could he want her alone for any moment? thought Florence. There
was her mother still looking at them; but for her Harry did not now care
one straw. Nor did he hate those bright Italian lakes with nearly so
strong a feeling of abhorrence. "Florence, you are now all my own."
There came another slightest pressure, slight, but s