in possession of the right during
their engagement.

"Ah! you like it," says Desmond, looking down upon her
tenderly,--alluding to the charming view spread out before them,--the
dark firs, the floating moon, the tranquil stars, the illimitable ocean,
"of Almightiness itself the immense and glorious mirror."

Monica makes no verbal answer, but a sigh of intensest satisfaction
escapes her, and she turns up to his a lovely face full of youth and
heaven and content. Her eyes are shining, her lips parted by a glad,
tremulous smile. She is altogether so unconsciously sweet that it would
be beyond the power of even a Sir Percivale to resist her.

"My heart of hearts!" says Desmond, in a low, impassioned tone.

Her smile changes. Without losing beauty, it loses something ethereal
and gains a touch of earth. It is more pronounced; it is, in fact,
amused.

"I wonder where you learned all your terms of endearment," she says,
slowly, looking at him from under her curling lashes.

"I learned them when I saw you. They had their birth then and there."

An eloquent silence follows this earnest speech. The smile dies from
Monica's lips, and a sudden thoughtfulness replaces it.

"You never called any one your 'heart of hearts' before, then?" she
asks, somewhat wistfully.

"Never--_never_. You believe me?"

"Yes." Her lids drop. Some inward thought possesses her, and then--with
a sudden accession of tenderness very rare with her--she lifts her head,
and lays her soft, cool cheek fondly against his.

"My beloved!" says the young man, in a tone broken by emotion.

For a moment he does not take her in his arms; some fear lest she may
change her mind and withdraw her expression of affection deters him; and
when at last he does press her to his heart, it is gently and with a
careful suppression of all vehemence.

Perhaps no man in all the world is so calculated to woo and win this
girl as Desmond. Perhaps there is no woman so formed to gain and keep
him as Monica.

Holding her now in a light but warm clasp, he knows he has his heaven in
his arms; and she, though hardly yet awake to the full sweetness of
"Love's young dream," understands at least the sense of perfect rest and
glad content that overfills her when with him.

"What are you thinking of?" she says, presently.

"'Myn alderlevest ladye deare,'" quotes he, softly.

"And what of her?"

"'That to the deth myn herte is to her holde,'--yes, for ever and ever,"
says