fortune's framing gold. Fastidious
girl, and prouder than the proud Montignys, listen to me, listen.
We are two stranger vessels that have met upon the highway of the
lonely sea;--we are as two ships that, being long from port, have,
sailing, met, and exchanged one with the other, what each has needed
and what each could spare; we have bartered heart for heart. Have
you not given me yours? If you have not, why, then, return me mine."

"Then were I poor indeed," replied Amanda.

"Yet I were poorer without yours," retorted Claude, "poorer than
he who begs his bread. I wish I had to beg my bread for you, then
richly should you fare; for who, when I should crave for love of
you, (as mendicants ask alms for love of heaven), could then refuse
me? Oh, refuse no longer my request. Estimate not my fortune, but
appraise myself; and whatsoever you may deem to be my value, account
your own worth as being ten thousand times that sum. Still take
me, a mere miserable doit; an earnest, an instalment towards the
payment of the debt of love and loyalty, that shall require a life
to liquidate, then leave me bankrupt in untold arrears."

"I should forgive the debt, even before you could have asked
forgiveness," replied Amanda, smiling, though much moved; "and yet
I would not leave you perfectly absolved, but still retain you by
some small reminder, some power of execution over you--not to be
exercised towards you to your hurt--far from it, but I would be
absolute that I might shew you mercy; even as noblest kings have
been despotic, and in their day have delighted in dispensing pardon.
So would I be towards you;--or even as the King of Kings--to speak
it reverently--who, of His boundless goodness and free grace,
remits the debts and manifold trespasses of us, his poor, defaulting
creatures."

"Go on, for it is bliss to hear you," murmured Claude.

"Nay, I have done;--what have I said?" she quietly enquired of him.

"Would you unsay it?" he demanded eagerly.

"Only to say it again," she answered blushing,--"yet I fear I have
babbled strangely;--but, remember, I was never wooed before, nor
answered wooer; so, being a novice in love's archery, it may be
that the gust of a too ardent breath has caught my words, and from
my meaning wafted them awry."

"And can a fountain yield both bitter and sweet?" demanded Claude:
"or are you as changeful as is yon waning moon?" he asked half
chidingly.

"Rather consider me to be as is the sun, t