eeling was; I read of it in books.
It was the theme of many a fluent tongue, but all was cold and passive
_here_," said she, pressing her hand on the throbbing heart that now
ached with the intensity of its emotion. "Everybody said I had no heart,
and I believed them. You first taught me that there was a vital spark
burning within it, and blew upon it with a breath of flame. I tell you,
Clinton, you had better tamper with the lightning's chain than the
passions of this suddenly awakened heart. I tell you I am a dangerous
being. There is a power within me that makes me tremble with its
consciousness. I am a young girl, with no experience. I know nothing of
the blandishments of art, and if I did I would scorn to exercise them.
You have told me a thousand times that you loved me and I have believed
you. I would willingly die a thousand times for the rapture of hearing
it once; but if I thought the being lived who could supplant me--if I
thought you could ever prove false to me--"

Her eye flashed and her cheek glowed in the night-beams that, as Clinton
said, made her their focus, so brightly were they reflected from her
face. What Clinton said, it is unnecessary to repeat, for the language
of passion is commonplace, unless it flows from lips as fresh and
unworldly and impulsive as Mittie's.

"Let me put a mark on this tree," she said, stooping down and picking up
a sharp fragment of rock at its base. "If you ever forget what you have
said to me this night, I will lead you to this spot, and show you the
wounded bark--"

She began to carve her own initials, but he insisted upon substituting
his penknife and assisting her in the task, to which she consented. As
they stood side by side, he guiding her hand, and his long, soft locks
playing against her cheek, or mingling with her own, she surrendered
herself to a feeling of unalloyed happiness, when all at once Miss
Thusa's legend of the Black Knight, with the dark, far-flowing hair,
and the maiden with the bleeding heart, came to her remembrance, and she
involuntarily shuddered.

"Why am I ever recalling that wild legend?" thought she. "I am getting
to be as weak and superstitious as Helen. Why, when it seems to me that
the wing of an angel is fluttering against my cheek, should I remember
that demon-sprite?"

Underneath her initials he carved his own, in larger, bolder characters.

"Would you believe it," said she, in a light mocking tone, "that I felt
every stroke of