th and earnestness were in his manner, and
his words were neither feverish nor forced.

"I love you I! I need you!" So I heard, and so he soon made me believe.
"You have charmed me from the first. Your tantalizing, trusting, loyal
self, like no other, sweeter than any other, has drawn the heart from my
breast. I have seen many women, admired many women, but you only have I
loved. Will you be my wife?"

I was dazzled; moved beyond anything I could have conceived. I forgot
all that I had hitherto said to myself--all that I had endeavored
to impress upon my heart when I beheld him approaching, intent, as
I believed, in his search for another woman; and, confiding in his
honesty, trusting entirely to his faith, I allowed the plans and
purposes of years to vanish in the glamour of this new joy, and spoke
the word which linked us together in a bond which half an hour before I
had never dreamed would unite me to any man.

His impassioned "Mine! mine!" filled my cup to overflowing. Something
of the ecstasy of living entered my soul; which, in spite of all I have
suffered since, recreated the world for me and made all that went before
but the prelude to the new life, the new joy.

Oh, I was happy, happy, perhaps too happy! As the conservatory filled
and we passed back into the adjoining room, the glimpse I caught of
myself in one of the mirrors startled me into thinking so. For had it
not been for the odd color of my dress and the unique way in which I
wore my hair that night, I should not have recognized the beaming girl
who faced me so naively from the depths of the responsive glass.

Can one be too happy? I do not know. I know that one can be too
perplexed, too burdened and too sad.

Thus far I have spoken only of myself in connection with the evening's
elaborate function. But though entitled by my old Dutch blood to a
certain social consideration which I am happy to say never failed me,
I, even in this hour of supreme satisfaction, attracted very little
attention and awoke small comment. There was another woman present
better calculated to do this. A fair woman, large and of a bountiful
presence, accustomed to conquest, and gifted with the power of carrying
off her victories with a certain lazy grace irresistibly fascinating to
the ordinary man; a gorgeously appareled woman, with a diamond on her
breast too vivid for most women, almost too vivid for her. I noticed
this diamond early in the evening, and then I noticed h