t," said she, turning round her tearful eyes
upon me, and looking most bewitchingly beautiful. "Have I then showed
you this plainly?"

"Yes, dearest girl! That instinct which tells us we are loved has spoken
within me. And here in this beating heart"--

"Oh! say not more," said she, "if I have, indeed, gained your
affections"--

"If--if you have," said I, clasping her to my heart, while she continued
to sob still violently, and I felt half disposed to blow my brains out
for my success. However, there is something in love-making as in
fox-hunting, which carries you along in spite of yourself; and I
continued to pour forth whole rhapsodies of love that the Pastor Fido
could not equal.

"Enough," said she, "it is enough that you love me and that I have
encouraged your so doing. But oh! tell me once more, and think how much
of future happiness may rest upon your answer--tell me, may not this be
some passing attachment, which circumstances have created, and others may
dispel? Say, might not absence, time, or another more worthy"--

This was certainly a very rigid cross-examination when I thought the
trial was over; and not being exactly prepared for it, I felt no other
mode of reply than pressing her taper fingers alternately to my lips, and
muttering something that might pass for a declaration of love
unalterable, but, to my own ears, resembled a lament on my folly.

"She is mine now," thought I, "so we must e'en make the best of it; and
truly she is a very handsome girl, though not a Lady Jane Callonby. The
next step is the mamma; but I do not anticipate much difficulty in that
quarter."

"Leave me now," said she, in a low and broken voice; "but promise not to
speak of this meeting to any one before we meet again. I have my
reasons; believe me they are sufficient ones, so promise me this before
we part."

Having readily given the pledge required, I again kissed her hand and
bade farewell, not a little puzzled the whole time at perceiving that
ever since my declaration and acceptance Emily seemed any thing but
happy, and evidently struggling against some secret feeling of which I
knew nothing. "Yes," thought I, as I wended my way along the corridor,
"the poor girl is tremendously jealous, and I must have said may a thing
during our intimacy to hurt her. However, that is all past and gone; and
now comes a new character for me: my next appearance wil be 'en bon
mari.'"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THOUGHTS