o tears.

Poor Harry stood before her for a moment, his head hanging down, and a
deep blush of shame on his face.

"O Kate," said he, in a deep, tremulous voice, "forgive me; do--do
forgive me! I knew not what I said. I scarce knew what I did" (here he
seized her hand). "I know but one thing, Kate, and tell it you I
_will_, if it should cost me my life. I love you, Kate, to distraction,
and I wish you to be my wife. I have been rude, very rude. Can you
forgive me, Kate?"

Now, this latter part of Harry's speech was particularly comical, the
comicality of it lying, in this, that while he spoke he drew Kate
gradually towards him, and at the very time when he gave utterance to
the penitential remorse for his rudeness, Kate was infolded in a much
more vigorous embrace than at the first; and, what is more remarkable
still, she laid her little head quietly on his shoulder, as if she had
quite changed her mind in regard to what was and what was not rude, and
rather enjoyed it than otherwise.

While the lovers stood in this interesting position, it became apparent
to Harry's olfactory nerves that the atmosphere was impregnated with
tobacco smoke. Looking hastily up, he beheld an apparition that tended
somewhat to increase the confusion of his faculties.

In the opening of the bower stood Mr Kennedy, senior, in a state of
inexpressible amazement. We say _inexpressible_ advisedly, because the
extreme pitch of feeling which Mr Kennedy experienced at what he beheld
before him cannot possibly be expressed by human visage. As far as the
countenance of man could do it, however, we believe the old gentleman's
came pretty near the mark on this occasion. His hands were in his coat
pockets, his body bent a little forward, his head and neck outstretched
a little beyond it, his eyes almost starting from the sockets, and
certainly the most prominent feature in his face; his teeth firmly
clinched on his beloved pipe, and his lips expelling a multitude of
little clouds so vigorously that one might have taken him for a sort of
self-acting intelligent steam-gun that had resolved utterly to
annihilate Kate and Harry at short range in the course of two minutes.

When Kate saw her father she uttered a slight scream, covered her face
with her hands, rushed from the bower, and disappeared in the wood.

"So, young gentleman," began Mr Kennedy, in a slow, deliberate tone of
voice, while he removed the pipe from his mouth, clinched his