ed more heavily upon his arm.
Twice their eyes met, and as Netta's fell before those of her companion
it was not until they had told the sweet, pure love of her young heart.
They were no fiery, rapturous glances--no looks of passionate ecstasy;
but the soft, beaming maiden love of an innocent, trusting girl, whose
young heart was opening, like a flower, to offer its fragrant sweets to
the man who had first spoken gentle words to her--words that had seemed
to her, who had not had girlhood's joys, like the words of love. And
that young heart had opened under the influence, like the scented
rosebud in the sun; but there was a fatal canker there, and as the
flower bloomed, the withering was at hand.

"Let us stop here," cried Netta, drinking in the beauty of the scene;
"it is like being young again, when we were so happy--when mamma watched
for papa's coming, and there seemed no trouble in life. Oh, it has been
a cruel time!"

She shuddered, and clung to the arm which supported her.

"This is very wrong of me," she said, looking up, and smiling the next
moment. "I ought not to talk of the past like that."

"Shall we sit down here?" he said, pointing to a fallen tree trunk.

Then, with the low hum of the insects round them, they entered the edge
of the wood.

He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments, and twice her eyes
were raised to his with so appealing and tender a look that he felt
unmanned. He had brought her there to tell her something, and her love
disarmed him; so that he snatched at a chance to put off that which he
wished to say.

"You were telling me of the happy past," he said. "Your were well off
once?"

"Yes, and so happy," said the girl, her eyes filling with tears. "I
ought not, perhaps, to tell you, though."

"You may trust me, Netta," he said, taking her hand.

"I always felt that I could," she cried, eagerly, as her face flushed
more deeply, and her hand trembled in his; for he had again called her
Netta, and her heart throbbed with joy, even though he was so grave.
"Shall I tell you?"

"Yes--tell me; but are you weary?"

"Oh, no, no," she said, excitedly. "But I must not mention names.
Mamma wishes ours kept secret, for she is very proud. Papa is an
officer, and as I remember him first, he was so handsome, even as mamma
was beautiful. We used to live in a pretty cottage, just outside town,
and papa was so kind. But how it came about I never knew, he gradually
grew cold,