Again he looked at her. Could this girl, who received him so coldly, so indifferently, be his own beautiful, bright Doris? It seemed incredible. Perhaps he had been so unfortunate as to offend her. He bent over her again. "Doris," he said, gently, "have I been so unfortunate as to displease you?" "No," she replied. "I do not remember that you have." "You're so changed, I can hardly imagine that this is you." The pain in his voice touched her. She looked at him; his face had grown very pale, and there was a cloud in his clear, loving eyes. She laughed a low, impatient laugh. "Pray do not be so unhappy because I am cross," she said. "I never pretended to have a good temper. I am always impatient over something or other." "But why with me? You know that your smile makes heaven to me: your frown, despair. Why be cross with me, darling? I would give all I have on earth to save you from one unhappy moment." "I am tired," she said, "and I cannot forget the Castle, Earle. I wish so much that I had been born to live in such a place; I should have been quite at home and happy there." "Are you not at home and happy here?" he asked. "No," she replied. "Happy in a lonely, dreary farm-house!" "With the kindest of parents, the sweetest of sisters, the most devoted of lovers, it seems to me, Doris, that you have all the elements of happiness." She did not even hear him; she was thinking of the grandeur she had seen. "I call that something like life," she continued--"luxury and gayety. I would sooner never have been born at all than be condemned to spend all my life here." "But it will not be spent here, my darling; it will be spent with me." His face glowed; the rapture of content came over it. There was no response in hers. "I shall change Brackenside for Lindenholm," she said. "I cannot see that it will make much difference. It is only exchanging one farm-house for another." "But I who love you am in the other," he said, gently. "Oh, Doris, you pain me so greatly! I know that you do not mean what you say, but you wound me to death." Again she hardly heard him. "I should very much like to know," Doris continued, "if it is fair to place me, with a keen, passionate longing for life, gayety, and pleasure, here, where I have none of the three." "None of the three!" he repeated, sadly, "and I find heaven with you." He knelt down in front of her, where he could see her face, and he drew it gently down to his own. "I will not believe you mean this, my darling; if I did believe it I should go mad. Your beauty-loving, artistic nature has been aroused by what you have seen, and it makes you slightly discontented with us all. You ought to reign in a palace, my darling, because you are so beautiful and brilliant; but the palace shall be of my winning. You shall have every luxury that you have seen and envied." "When?" she asked, briefly, bringing his castle in the air suddenly to the ground.