ything so cruel."

Lord Hilton laughed; he could not help it.

"But why would it be cruel?"

"Because--because it would get me into trouble. Grandmamma is a lovely
old angel, and to oblige her I would fall in love with fifty men if it
were possible, especially after what she has done to-day: but it is not
possible."

"And the old gentleman at the opposite side of the valley is good as
gold, and I should like to oblige him; and sometimes I feel as if it
could be done, so far as I am concerned, but for one thing."

"And what is that?"

"Lady Clara, if I had not been fatally in love already, I should by this
time have adored you."

The color came and went in the girl's face. She tore a handful of ferns
from the rock, and dropped them into the water at her feet; then she
lifted her eyes to the young man's face, with the innocent confidence of
a child. Her voice was low and timid as she spoke again; but the ring of
modest truth was there.

"Lord Hilton, I am very young; but in what you have said, I can see that
you and I ought to understand each other. You love another person--I,
too, am beloved."

A shade of disappointment swept the young man's features. He had not
wished this fair girl to care for him, yet the thought that it was
impossible brought a little annoyance with it.

"And yourself?"

"I have permitted a man to say he loved me, and did not rebuke him;
because every word he spoke made my heart leap."

"But will the old countess consent?"

"I thought so--I hoped so, till you startled me with this idea about
yourself. Oh! be firm, be firm in hating me. Don't leave the whole
battle to a poor little girl."

"Perhaps I shall not feel all your earnestness, for there is no hope in
the future for me, with or without consent. I can never turn back to the
past, though I am not villain enough to lay a heart which contains the
image of another at any woman's feet, without giving her a full
knowledge of that which has gone before. The love which I confess to
you, Lady Clara, was put resolutely behind me before we met."

Quick as thought a suspicion flashed through the girl's brain. She
turned her eyes full upon the handsome head and face of the young man,
and examined his features keenly. His hat was off; he was bending
earnestly toward her.

"Lord Hilton, you sat in a box in the opera next to us on the night when
that young American singer broke down. I remember your head now. You
were leaning from the bo