presence. Rosannah?"

"Yes, Alonzo? Oh, how you terrified me! Say on."

"Name the happy day, Rosannah!"

There was a little pause. Then a diffident small voice replied,
"I blush--but it is with pleasure, it is with happiness. Would--would
you like to have it soon?"

"This very night, Rosannah! Oh, let us risk no more delays. Let it be
now!--this very night, this very moment!"

"Oh, you impatient creature! I have nobody here but my good old uncle,
a missionary for a generation, and now retired from service--nobody but
him and his wife. I would so dearly like it if your mother and your Aunt
Susan--"

"Our mother and our Aunt Susan, my Rosannah."

"Yes, our mother and our Aunt Susan--I am content to word it so if it
pleases you; I would so like to have them present."

"So would I. Suppose you telegraph Aunt Susan. How long would it take
her to come?"

"The steamer leaves San Francisco day after tomorrow. The passage is
eight days. She would be here the 31st of March."

"Then name the 1st of April; do, Rosannah, dear."

"Mercy, it would make us April fools, Alonzo!"

"So we be the happiest ones that that day's suit looks down upon in the
whole broad expanse of the globe, why need we care? Call it the 1st of
April, dear."

"Then the 1st of April at shall be, with all my heart!"

"Oh, happiness! Name the hour, too, Rosannah."

"I like the morning, it is so blithe. Will eight in the morning do,
Alonzo?"

"The loveliest hour in the day--since it will make you mine."

There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time, as if
wool-upped, disembodied spirits were exchanging kisses; then Rosannah
said, "Excuse me just a moment, dear; I have an appointment, and am
called to meet it."

The young girl sought a large parlor and took her place at a window which
looked out upon a beautiful scene. To the left one could view the
charming Nuuana Valley, fringed with its ruddy flush of tropical flowers
and its plumed and graceful cocoa palms; its rising foothills clothed in
the shining green of lemon, citron, and orange groves; its storied
precipice beyond, where the first Kamehameha drove his defeated foes over
to their destruction, a spot that had forgotten its grim history, no
doubt, for now it was smiling, as almost always at noonday, under the
glowing arches of a succession of rainbows. In front of the window one
could see the quaint town, and here and there a picturesque group of
dusky n