--Caroline smiled brightly--"you know she is mamma?"

"I have heard--Hortense told me; but that tale too I will receive from
yourself. Does she add to your happiness?"

"What! mamma? She is _dear_ to me; _how_ dear I cannot say. I was
altogether weary, and she held me up."

"I deserve to hear that in a moment when I can scarce lift my hand to my
head. I deserve it."

"It is no reproach against you."

"It is a coal of fire heaped on my head; and so is every word you
address to me, and every look that lights your sweet face. Come still
nearer, Lina; and give me your hand--if my thin fingers do not scare
you."

She took those thin fingers between her two little hands; she bent her
head _et les effleura de ses levres_. (I put that in French because the
word _effleurer_ is an exquisite word.) Moore was much moved. A large
tear or two coursed down his hollow cheek.

"I'll keep these things in my heart, Cary; that kiss I will put by, and
you shall hear of it again one day."

"Come out!" cried Martin, opening the door--"come away; you have had
twenty minutes instead of a quarter of an hour."

"She will not stir yet, you hempseed."

"I dare not stay longer, Robert."

"Can you promise to return?"

"No, she can't," responded Martin. "The thing mustn't become customary.
I can't be troubled. It's very well for once; I'll not have it
repeated."

"_You_'ll not have it repeated."

"Hush! don't vex him; we could not have met to-day but for him. But I
will come again, if it is your wish that I should come."

"It _is_ my wish--my _one_ wish--almost the only wish I can feel."

"Come this minute. My mother has coughed, got up, set her feet on the
floor. Let her only catch you on the stairs, Miss Caroline. You're not
to bid him good-bye"--stepping between her and Moore--"you are to
march."

"My shawl, Martin."

"I have it. I'll put it on for you when you are in the hall."

He made them part. He would suffer no farewell but what could be
expressed in looks. He half carried Caroline down the stairs. In the
hall he wrapped her shawl round her, and, but that his mother's tread
then creaked in the gallery, and but that a sentiment of diffidence--the
proper, natural, therefore the noble impulse of his boy's heart--held
him back, he would have claimed his reward; he would have said, "Now,
Miss Caroline, for all this give me one kiss." But ere the words had
passed his lips she was across the snowy road, rather skimming than