ut what are your leanings now? Don't
beat about the bush; speak out your wishes plainly. I am not a brute.
I would release a woman at the very altar, if her inclinations leaned
in another direction. Do you imagine I would care to marry a woman,
however much I might love her, whose heart was occupied by another?
Where would be the sanctity of such a marriage? I would be the worse
defrauded man of the two. So, Melville, if there is any one you like
better than you do me, speak it now. Tell me plainly, do you care for
me--or some one else?"

Now, Mell, here's your chance; hasten to redeem your past. He has put
the whole thing before you in a nutshell. You know just how he thinks
and how he feels. After this, you dare not further betray a heart so
noble, so forbearing, so true! Tell him, Mell; tell him, for your own
sake; tell him, for his sake; tell him, for God's sake! Come, Mell,
speak--speak quick! Don't wait a second, a single second! A second is
a very little bit of time, the sixtieth part of one little minute;
but, short as it is, if you hesitate, it will be long enough for you
to remember that you may live to be a very old woman, and pass all
your life in this old farm-house, utterly monotonous and wearisome;
that you will be very lonely; that you will be very poor; that you
will be very unhappy; that you will miss Rube's jewels and Rube's
sugar plums and Rube's hourly devotions, to which you have now become
so well accustomed;--short, but long enough to remember all this. So
speak, Mell, quick! quick! The second is gone before Mell speaks.

It was a long second for Rube.

"O Mell, Mell! can it be that you care for him and not for me? At
least, let _me_ hear it--let me hear the truth! I can bear anything
better than this uncertainty."

Even this bitter cry brought forth no response. The dumbness of
Dieffenbachia lay upon Mell's tongue.

"I see how it is," said Rube, turning to go.

"No, you don't!" exclaimed Mell, pulling him back. She was now
desperate. Her tear-stained face broke into April sunshine. "I do not
care for that other. How could you think so? Once I thought so myself;
it was a delusion. A woman cannot love a selfish, tyrannical,
overbearing creature like that!--not really, though she may think so
for a time; but you, Rube, you are the quintessence of goodness! you
are worth a dozen such men as he!"

"So it's me!" ejaculated Rube. "I am the lucky dog! I am the
quintessence of goodness!"

He d