honest words with which he would be likely to
offer his heart and life for her acceptance; yet she did open it almost
as soon as she reached her room, sitting down in her outside wraps for
the purpose. She was not disappointed. Every line was earnest, ardent,
and respectful. A true love and a happy cheerful home awaited her
if--the stupendous meaning latent in an _if_!

With folded hands lying across the white page, with glance fixed on the
fire always kept burning brightly in the grate, she sat querying her own
soul and the awful future. He was such a charming companion; life had
flashed and glimmered with a thousand lights and colors since she knew
him; his very laugh made her want to sing. With him she would move in
sunshiny paths, open to the regard of all the world, giving and
receiving good. Life would need no veils and love no check. A placid
stream would bear her on through fields of smiling verdure. Dread hopes,
strange fears, uneasy doubts and vague unrests, would not disturb the
heart that rested its faith upon his frank and manly bosom. A breeze
blew through his life that would sweep all such evils from the path of
her who walked in trust and love by his side. In trust and love; ah!
that was it. She trusted him, but did she love him? At one time she had
been convinced that she did, else these past few weeks would have owned
a different history. He came upon her so brightly amid her gloom; filled
her days with such genial thoughts, and drew the surface of her soul so
unconsciously after him. It was like a zephyr sweeping over the sea;
every billow that leaps to follow seems to own the power of that passing
wind. But could she think so now, since she had found that the mere
voice and look of another man had power to awaken depths such as she
could not name and scarcely as yet had been able to recognize? that
though the billows might flow under the genial smile of her young lover,
the tide rose only at the call of a deeper voice and a more imposing
presence?

She was a thinking spirit and recoiled from yielding too readily to any
passing impulse. Love was a sacrament in her eyes; something entirely
too precious to be accepted in counterfeit. She must know the secret of
her inclinations, must weigh the influence that swayed her, for once
given over to earth's sublimest passion, she felt that it would have
power to sweep her on to an eternity of bliss or suffering.

She therefore forced herself to probe deep in