ate as you have
mentioned? Heaven forbid!"

"Then what am I to think?" asked Marlow, pressing closer to her side and
gliding his arm round her. "I am almost mad to dream of such happiness,
and yet your tone, your look, my Emily, make me so rash. Tell me
then--tell me at once, am I to hope or to despair?--Will you be mine?"

"Of course," she answered, "can you doubt it?"

"I can almost doubt my senses," said Marlow; but he had no occasion to
doubt them.

They sat there for nearly half an hour; they then wandered on, with
marvellous meanderings in their course, for more than an hour and a half
more, and when they returned, Emily knew more of love than ever could be
learned from books. Marlow drew her feelings forth and gave them
definite form and consistency. He presented them to her by telling what
he himself felt in a plain and tangible shape, which required no long
reverie--none of their deep fits of thoughtfulness to investigate and
comprehend. From the rich store of his own imagination, and the treasury
of deep feeling in his breast, he poured forth illustrations that
brightened as if with sunshine every sensation which had been dark and
mysterious in her bosom before; and ere they turned their steps back
towards the house, Emily believed--nay, she felt; and that is much
more--that without knowing it, she had loved him long.

CHAPTER XXV.

This must be a chapter of rapid action, comprising in its brief space
the events of many months--events which might not much interest the
reader in minute detail, but which produced important results to all the
persons concerned, and drew on the coming catastrophe.

The news that Mr. Marlow was about to be married to Emily, the beautiful
heiress of Sir Philip Hastings, spread far and wide over the country;
and if joy and satisfaction reigned in the breasts of three persons in
Emily's dwelling, discontent and annoyance were felt more and more
strongly every hour by Lady Hastings. A Duke, she thought, would not
have been too high a match for her daughter, with all the large estates
she was to inherit; and the idea of her marrying a simple commoner was
in itself very bitter. She was not a woman to bear a disappointment
gracefully; and Emily soon had the pain of discovering that her
engagement to Marlow was much disapproved by her mother. She consoled
herself, however, by the full approval of her father, who was somewhat
more than satisfied.

Sir Philip for his part, consid