ent.

"Oh, don't you see? I should have felt that you had been foolish to--to
love me----" There was an interlude. Should he ever grow tired of
kissing her? he asked himself. "And I should have been afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Well, that you would be ashamed of me when you took me into the society
of fashionable people, and----Oh, I am very glad that you are not rich!
That sounds unkind, I am afraid."

"Nell," he said solemnly, "I have long suspected that you were an angel
masquerading as a mere woman, but I am now convinced of it."

She laughed, and softly rubbed her cheek against his arm.

"And I have long suspected that you were a rich man and a 'somebody'
masquerading as a poor one, and I am delighted to hear that I was
mistaken."

He started at the first words of her retort, but breathed a sigh of
relief as she concluded.

"Poor or rich, I love you, Nell," he said, with a seriousness which was
almost solemn, "and I will do my level best to make you happy. When you
are my wife----"

The blood rushed to her face, and her head dropped.

"That will be a long time hence," she whispered.

"No, no!" he said quickly, passionately. "I couldn't wait very long,
Nell. But when you are my wife, I will try to prove to you that poor
people can be happy. We shall just have enough to set up a house in some
foreign land."

She looked up at him gravely.

"And leave mamma and--Dick? Yes?"

The acquiescence touched him.

"You won't mind, dearest--you won't mind leaving England?"

She shook her head.

"How cold and cruel I have become," she said, as if she were communing
with herself. "But I do not care; I feel as if I could leave any one--go
anywhere--if--if--I were with you!"

She moved, so that she knelt beside him, and her small brown hands were
palm downward on his breast; her eyes shone like stars with the light of
a perfect love glowing in them; her sweet lips quivered, as, with all a
young girl's abandonment to her first passion, she breathed:

"Do you think I care whether you are poor or rich? I love you! Do you
think I care whether you are handsome or ugly? It is you I love. Do you
think I care where I go, so that you take me with you? I could not live
without you. I would rather wander through the world, in rags, and
starving, cold, and hungry, than--than marry a king and live in a
palace! I only want you, you, you! I have wanted you since--since that
first day--do you remember? I--turn your eyes aw