curate in their opinions, than us men? While I was ready to
hang myself for jealousy of Andrew Drewett, did you really know that my
heart was entirely yours?"

"I was not without misgivings, Miles, and sometimes those that were keenly
painful; but, on the whole, I will not say I felt my power, but that I
felt we were dear to each other."

"Did you never suppose, as your excellent father has done, that we were
too much like brother and sister, to become lovers--too much accustomed
to be dear to each other as children, to submit to passion? For that which
I feel for you, Lucy, I do not pretend to dignify with the name of esteem,
and respect, and affection--it is a passion, that will form the misery, or
happiness of my life."

Lucy smiled archly, and again the end of her parasol played with the grass
that grew around the rock on which we were seated.

"How could I think this for you," she said, "when I had a contrary
experience of my own constantly present, Miles? I saw that you thought
there was some difference of condition between us, (silly fellow!) and I
felt persuaded you had only your own diffidence to overcome, to tell your
own story."

"And knowing and seeing all this, cruel Lucy, why did you suffer years of
cruel, cruel doubt to hang over me?"

"Was it a woman's part to speak, Miles? I endeavoured to act
naturally,--believe I did act naturally,--and I left the rest to God.
Blessed be his mercy, I am rewarded!"

I folded Lucy to my heart, and, passing a moment of sweet sympathy in the
embrace, we both began to talk of other things, as if mutually conscious
that our feelings were too high-wrought for the place in which we were. I
inquired as to the condition of things at Clawbonny, and was gratified
with the report. Everybody expected me. I had no tenantry to come forth to
meet me,--nor were American tenants much addicted to such practices, even
when they were to be found: though the miserable sophistry on the subject
of landlord and tenant,--one of the most useful and humanizing relations
of civilized life,--did not then exist among us, that I am sorry to find
is now getting into vogue. In that day, it was not thought 'liberty' to
violate the fair covenants of a lease; and attempts to cheat a landed
proprietor out of his rights were _called_ cheating, as they ought to
be--and they were called nothing else.

In that day, a lease in perpetuity was thought a more advantageous bargain
for the tenant, than a le