acquainted with it? You know my
sister?"

"Know her, and love her--I have given her my whole heart."

"And she--has she returned your love?"

"Would that I could say surely yes! Alas! I am still in doubt."

"Your words are strange. O sir, tell me who you are! I need not
question what you have said. I perceive that you know my sister--and
who I am. It is true: I am Marian Holt--and you? you are from
Tennessee?"

"I have come direct from it."

"From the Obion? perhaps from--"

"From your father's clearing on Mud Creek, Marian."

"Oh! this is unexpected--what fortune to have met you, sir! You have
seen my sister then?"

"I have."

"And spoken with her? How long ago?"

"Scarcely a month."

"So lately! And how looks she? She was well!"

"How looks she?--Beautiful, Marian, like yourself. She was well, too,
when I last saw her."

"Dear Lilian!--O sir! how glad I am to hear from her! Beautiful I know
she is--very, very beautiful. Ah me!--they said I was so too, but my
good looks have been lost in the wilderness. A life like that I have
been leading soon takes the softness from a girl's cheeks. But, Lilian!
O stranger! tell me of her! I long to hear of her--to see her. It is
but six months, and yet I think it six years, since I saw her. Oh! how
I long to throw my arms around her! to twine her beautiful golden-hair
around my fingers, to gaze into her blue innocent eyes!" My heart
echoed the longings.

"Sweet little Lilian! Ah--little--perhaps not, sir? She will be grown
by this? A woman like myself?"

"Almost a woman."

"Tell me, sir--did she speak of me? Oh, tell me--what said she of her
sister Marian?"

The question was put in a tone that betrayed anxiety. I did not leave
her to the torture of suspense; but hastily repeated the affectionate
expressions which Lilian had uttered in her behalf.

"Good kind Lil! I know she loves me as I love her--we had no other
companions--none I may say for years, only father himself. And father--
is he well?"

There was a certain reservation in the tone of this interrogatory, that
contrasted strangely with that used when speaking of her sister. I well
knew why.

"Yes," I replied, "your father was also in good health when I saw him."

There was a pause that promised embarrassment--a short interval of
silence. A question occurred to me that ended it. "Is there no one
else about whom you would desire to hear?"

I looked into her eyes a