to put his meaning in words which could not be mistaken,
so she said to him amid her tears--glad, happy tears they were now:

"Whom are you to marry?"

"Whom?" he repeated. "Whom but you, Bessie McPherson, whom I believe I
have loved ever since that Christmas I spent at Stoneleigh two years
ago. Do you remember the knot of plaid ribbon you wore that night and
which I won at play? I have it still, as one of my choicest treasures,
and the curl of hair which Flossie cut from your head, in Rome, when we
thought you would die, I divided that tress with Jack Trevellian the
night we talked together of you, with breaking hearts, because we
believed you were dead. He told me then of his love for you, and I
confessed mine to him, though we both supposed that, had you lived, Neil
would have claimed you as his. Oh, Bessie, those were dreary months to
me, when I thought you dead, and may you never know the anguish I
endured when I stood by that grave in Stoneleigh and believed you lying
there. But God has been very good to me, far better than I deserve. He
has given you to me at last and nothing shall separate us again."

While Grey talked, he was caressing Bessie's face and hair, and stooping
occasionally to kiss her, while she sat dumb and motionless, so full was
she of the great joy which had come so suddenly upon her, and which, as
yet, she could not realize.

"We will be married at Christmas," Grey said; "the anniversary of the
time when I first saw you, little dreaming then, that you would one day
be my wife. Shall it not be so?"

What Bessie might have said or how long the interview might have lasted,
we have no means of knowing, for a shrill cry in the distance of "None
of that, misther! for I'm comin' meself to take the hide of ye,"
startled them from their state of bliss, and looking up they saw Jennie
bearing swiftly down upon them, with both arms extended ready for fight.

Jennie, who knew nothing of Grey's arrival, had visited with the
servants, until she concluded it was time to return to her young
mistress. As she came within sight of the summer-house what was her
horror to see a tall young man with his arms around Bessie, and, as it
seemed to her, trying to take her from the chair.

"Thaves and murther!" she cried, "if there isn't a spalpeen thryin' to
run away with Miss Bessie, body and bones;" and at her utmost speed she
dashed on to the fray.

But at sight of Grey she stopped short, and with wide-open eyes