time
he would have died to defend me from harm. It was reserved for his
courtly, high-bred, elegant rival to betray the trust he won! The
storm that followed Peleg's revelation was fierce, and availing
herself of his jealous surveillance, grandmother allowed me no more
stolen interviews. After a fortnight, Cuthbert came one day and
demanded permission to see me, alleging that we were betrothed, and
that he would give satisfactory explanations of his conduct.
Grandmother was obdurate, but unfortunately I ventured in, and,
seizing me in his arms, he swore that all the world should not
separate us. To her he explained that his father desired him to marry
an heiress who lived not far from the paternal mansion, and possessed
immense estates, upon which the covetous eyes of the Laurances' had
long been fixed; but until he completed his collegiate course matters
must be delayed. He protested that he could love no one but me, and
solemnly vowed that as soon as freed by his majority from parental
control he would make me his wife. I was sufficiently insane to
believe it all; but grandmother was wiser, and sternly interdicted
his visits.

"A month went by, during which Peleg persecuted me with professions
of love, and offers of marriage. How I detested him, and by contrast
how godlike appeared my refined, polished, proud young lover! At
length Cuthbert wrote to me, entrusting the letter to a college chum
Gerbert Audre, but Peleg's Argus scrutiny could not be baffled, and
again I was detected.

"Meantime grandmother's strength was evidently failing, and Uncle
Orme was far away in western wilds; who would save me from my own
rash folly if she should die, and leave me unprotected? This
apprehension preyed ceaselessly on her mind, she grew morose, moody,
tyrannical; and when finally Cuthbert came once more, forcing an
entrance into the little cottage, and asking upon what conditions he
might be permitted to visit me, she bluntly told him that she had
determined to take me at all hazards to a convent, and shut me up for
ever, unless within forty-eight hours he married me. The though of
separation made him almost frantic, and after some discussion, it was
arranged that we should be married very secretly in a distant town,
with only grandmother and his room-mate Andre as witnesses. Our union
would be concealed rigidly until Cuthbert had left college and
attained his majority, which was then nearly two years distant; at
which time he