e, and
of course you mean it."

"If you think that I am speaking her mind and not my own, you do not
know me."

"And what is it you propose?" he said, still keeping his seat and
looking calmly up into her face.

"Simply that our engagement should be over."

"And why?"

"Because it is not a fitting one for you to have made. I did not
understand it before, but now I do. It will not be good for you to
marry an American girl. It will not add to your happiness, and may
destroy it. I have learned, at last, to know how much higher is your
position than mine."

"And I am to be supposed to know nothing about it?"

"Your fault is only this,--that you have been too generous. I can be
generous also."

"Now, look here, Caroline, you must not be angry with me if on such
a subject I speak plainly. You must not even be angry if I laugh a
little."

"Pray do not laugh at me!--not now."

"I must a little, Carry. Why am I to be supposed to be so ignorant of
what concerns my own happiness and my own duties? If you will not sit
down, I will get up, and we will take a turn together." He rose from
his seat, but they did not leave the covered terrace. They moved on
to the extremity, and then he stood hemming her in against a marble
table in the corner. "In making this rather wild proposition, have
you considered me at all?"

"I have endeavoured to consider you, and you only."

"And how have you done it? By the aid of some misty, far-fetched
ideas respecting English society, for which you have no basis except
your own dreams,--and by the fantasies of a rabid enthusiast."

"She is not rabid," said Caroline earnestly; "other people think just
the same."

"My dear, there is only one person whose thinking on this subject
is of any avail, and I am that person. Of course, I can't drag you
into church to be married, but practically you can not help yourself
from being taken there now. As there need be no question about our
marriage,--which is a thing as good as done--"

"It is not done at all," said Caroline.

"I feel quite satisfied you will not jilt me, and as I shall insist
on having the ceremony performed, I choose to regard it as a
certainty. Passing that by, then, I will go on to the results. My
uncles, and aunts, and cousins, and the people you talk of, were very
reasonable folk when I last saw them, and quite sufficiently alive to
the fact that they had to regard me as the head of their family. I
do not doubt that we sha