"You can never be tame, Earle," said the girl, indignantly. "How can you say such a thing? Tame indeed! I should like to say what I think on the matter." Her warm sympathy somewhat reassured him. He looked up at her. "You do not think, then, that it is anything serious, Mattie? I am so glad. One so gay and bright as Doris naturally tires of a quiet home." "I do not think home so very quiet. You are always there, and she ought to find her happiness in your society." "I am sure she does," he replied, hastily, unable to cast even the shadow of blame on her; "but you see, dear, I love her so that a shadow on her fair face drives me mad." "You worship her, Earle," said Mattie, gravely; "and in this weary world man or woman who commits that sin of idolatry is certain to suffer for it." "What can I do to win her smiles again?" asked the young lover. "I do not know, Earle. I wish your happiness did not depend so entirely on her smiles." "It is too late to remedy that," replied Earle. As he spoke he saw in the distance the glimmer of her dress between the trees. "There she is!" he cried. "I will go to her." His face flushed crimson, and Mattie watched him sadly as he hastened after her sister. "How he loves her!" she thought. "Poor Earle! he has no life apart from her; it is almost pitiful to see him." Doris, believing herself unseen, had gone out hoping to avoid Earle. She liked him too well to pain him, yet every moment she was drawing nearer to the precipice. "Anything," she said to herself, "is better than the sight of that pained face." She resolved to go down to the Thorpe Meadow and while away an hour or two there. Earle would not dream of looking there for her; so she went, taking with her one of her favorite French novels. She found a seat in a shady nook. She opened the novel, but she could not read; the romance of her own life was more exciting to her now than any other--that wild romance of which the outward symbol was a diamond ring. She took the ring from her purse and placed it on her finger. How it shone, and gleamed, and glittered! So may the eye of the serpent have glittered in the garden of Paradise. She held out her hand the better to admire it. Her lover's words came back to her: "I will hang jewels on your beautiful neck and round your white arms." Her heart beat fast. That would indeed be a triumph. What was anything else in the wide world compared to this? Besides, the young lord sincerely loved her. Had he not so declared, with passion and truth burning in his eyes? What was Earle's love--the love of a poor poet--to the passionate rapture of a rich young lord, who was willing to marry her, and could crown her with the rarest gems, give her every luxury in life? As the thought crossed her mind Earle drew near, at first unobserved by her. His eye at once alighted upon the ring.