"You cannot argue indifference from my delay. I was ready for this declaration a year ago; but you were not; and while I left you in no doubt as to my intentions, I wished you to have ample time and opportunity for making up your mind. I have not the vanity to hope to allure by personal attractions or showy qualities; but if the disinterested love of a manly heart can win your regard, I may trust that my offering will not be scorned. I visited you last winter, and saw that you were not happily situated. A more hasty lover would have spoken then:--I would not have your discontent with one home, influence your decision in my offer of another--would not have you self-deceived; for your happiness is dearer to me than mine. But now, you are translated to a sphere, in which you are appreciated and beloved, your will is untrammelled by the restrictions of a stern guardian--free to move, without the goad of desire to escape a disagreeable lot. I have been very patient, Miss Ida." He had--and she knew nothing of him but what was generous and honourable. His persevering attachment was guaranty of its depth. Pleasant as her life was now, the death of her guardian, or his widower-hood--(she thought of such chances, in these days of death and change--) would cast her out upon the world--alone and homeless as before. She had all the woman's longing to be paramount in one heart,--the sun and attraction of a home. She could give her suitor but a sisterly regard, at present; but she had been told that this culminated in a calm affection, lasting through life--mighty in death. The passionate idolatry of earlier days was conquered by religion;--she believed that it had subsided into friendship;--its hopelessness impelled her to forget it--how more effectually than in another love? Her colour fled, as it ever did, before powerful emotion, and the fingers, while they went on, burying themselves in the glossy brown heap, were icy cold. She must reply--she looked up--not in the intelligent face--handsome in its pure fervor of devotion--but beyond--to where the blue sweep of the hills lay, graceful and light, against the rosy horizon; and she gazed, until her dark eyes were dilated and moveless, and her companion, struck by their expression, looked to the same spot. He saw but the hills, and the heavens, spanning them in crimson glory--she verily thought, as she stood, rooted to the earth, in the dumb agony of memory, and recoiling at the fate, her tongue had almost sealed,--that she beheld--as if the folds of that glowing canopy were drawn aside--the form and features of her first--what she knew now, was to be her only love!--that looking back, from whatever height in life, she should see the remembered lineaments distinct, unaltered, stamped upon that part of the Past he had made radiant. "Ida! do you never mean to marry?" inquired Charley, that night. "You gentleman say every girl will as soon as she has a good offer;" was the rejoinder.