ine, leaning against
the trunk of a pear-tree, looked down upon her, she said--

"Then I wish you would help me, Valentine. The devotion that I have
inspired, if I could only meet it as it deserves--" And then she went on
in a tone of apology, "And it is only help that I want, for I have five
hundred pounds of my own, if I could but get at it."

"Where is the devotion?" exclaimed Valentine, suddenly rallying. "Let me
only catch hold of that devotion, and I'll soon have it down on its
knees, and old Craik's large red hands hovering over it and you, while
he matches it as the Church directs to a devotion more than worthy of
it, as I will the five hundred pounds with another."

"Ah, but you can't," said Laura, laughing also, "because he's in
America; and, besides, you don't know all."

"Oh, he's in America, is he?"

"Yes; at least I suppose he's on the high seas by this time, or he will
be very shortly, for he's going up to New York."

"_Up_ to New York! Where does he hang out then when he's at home?"

"At Santo Domingo."

"That at least shows his original mind. Not black, of course? Not
descended from the woman who 'suddenly married a Quaker?'"

"Oh no, Valentine--an Englishman."

"An Englishman and live at Santo Domingo! Well, I should as soon have
expected him to live in the planetary spaces. It would be much more
roomy there, and convenient too, though to be sure a planet coming up
might butt at him now and then."

"It is rather a large island," said Laura. "But, Valentine----"

"Well."

"He speaks Spanish very well. He is comfortably off."

"His speciality, no doubt, is the sugar-cane. Well, I shall consider him
very mean if he doesn't let me have my sugar cheap, in return for my
kindness."

"You are sure you are going to be kind then."

"Yes. if he is a good fellow."

"He is a good fellow, and I am not worthy of him, for I behaved
shamefully to him. He has written me a very gentlemanly letter, and he
said, with perfect straightforwardness, that he did at one time believe
himself to have quite got over his attachment to me, but--but he had
been a good deal alone, had found time to think, and, in short, it had
come on again; and he hoped he was now able to offer me not only a very
agreeable home, but a husband more worthy of me. That's a mistake, for I
behaved ill to him, and he well, and always well, to me. In short, he
begged me to come over to New York in September: he is obliged to be
there on