ook this opportunity to call, madam,"
said he, very quietly, but in a tone of some decision. "I desired to see
you all alone."

"Not, surely, if you were aware that I did not receive?"

"Do not oblige me to convict myself, Mrs. Trafford; for I, too, shall be
almost afraid to tell the truth;" and a very faint smile moved his mouth
as he spoke.

"But, as I conjecture, you would like to meet my father--"

"My visit at present is for you," said he, interrupting; "and as I
cannot assure myself how long the opportunity may last, let me profit by
it."

She became very pale; some fear she certainly felt; but there was more
of anger than fear in the thought that this man was, by his manner,
almost asserting a right to see and speak with her.

"Mr. Maitland is too accomplished a man of the world to need being told
that, when a person has declared an indisposition to receive, it is
usually deemed enough to secure privacy."

"Usually,--yes; but there are occasions which are not in this category."

"And do you mean to say this is one of them, sir?" said she, haughtily.

"Most certainly, madam, this is one of them!" As Mait-land said this,
he saw the color mount to her face; and he saw, too, how, now that
her proud spirit was, as it were, challenged, she would not think of
retreat, but brave him, whatever might come of it.

"Indeed!" said she, with a scornful laugh,--"indeed!" and the last
syllable was drawn out in an accent of most insolent irony.

"Yes, madam," he continued, in a tone perfectly calm and un impassioned;
"our last relations together fully warrant me to say so much; and
however presumptuous it might have been in me to aspire as I did, the
gracious favor with which I was listened to seemed to plead for me."

"What favor do you speak of, sir?" said she, with evident agitation.

"I must not risk the faint hope that remains to me, by recalling what
you may not wish to remember; but I may at least ask you to bring to
mind a certain evening--a certain night--when we walked together in the
garden at Tilney."

"I do not think I am likely to forget it, sir; some anonymous slanderer
has made it the pretext of a most insolent calumny. I do not, I need not
say, connect you in any way with this base scandal; but it is enough to
make the incident the reverse of a pleasant memory."

"And yet it was the happiest of my whole life."

"It is unfortunate, sir, that we should look back to an event with
feelings so diame