“Perfectly, my shrewd little catechist!” seeming to shake off an uncomfortable incubus, as he laughed down at her serious face. “They vaunted themselves upon the antiquity of their line, and were more liberal in allusions to departed grandeur than was quite well-bred. When I knew them they were not wealthy, or in what they would have called 'society.' Indeed, the mother kept a private boarding-house near the law-school I attended. There were several sons--very decent, enterprising fellows. But one lived at home, and a daughter, the wife of a lieutenant in the navy, whom I never saw. I boarded with them for six months, or thereabout.” “You never saw the daughter! How was that?” “I must have expressed myself awkwardly if I conveyed any such idea. I did not meet the seafaring husband who was off upon a long cruise. The wife I met constantly--knew very well. You need not look at me so intently, love, as if you feared that some dark mystery lurked behind this matter-of-fact recital. If I do not tell you every event of my former life, it is not because it was vile. I could not sustain the light of your innocent eyes if I had ever been guilty of aught dishonorable or criminal. But even the follies and mistakes of a young man's early career are not fit themes for your ears. And I was no wiser, no more wary, than other youths of the same age; was apt to believe that fair which was only specious, and that I might play, uninjured, with edged tools. Nor had I seen you then, my treasure--my snow-drop of purity! Mabel! do you know how solemn a thing it is to be loved and trusted by a man, as I love and confide in you? It terrifies me when I think of the absoluteness of my dependence upon your fidelity--of how rich I am in having you--how poor, wretched, and miserable I should be without you. I shall not draw a free breath until you are mine beyond the chance of recall.” “Nobody else wants me!” breathed Mabel in his ear, nestling within the arm that enfolded and held her tightly in the corner of the piazza shaded by the creeper. “The danger of losing me is not imminent to-night, at all events,” she resumed, presently, with a touch of the sportiveness that lent her manner an airy charm in lighter talk than that which had engrossed her for the past hour. The evening was warm and still to sultriness, and the moonlight, filtered into pensive pallor through a low-lying haze, yet sufficed to show how confidingly Imogene leaned upon her attendant in sauntering down the long main alley of the garden. Rosa was at the piano in the parlor, singing to the enamored Alfred. Mrs. Sutton had withdrawn to her own room to ruminate upon the astounding disclosure of her nephew's engagement, while Winston bent over his study-table busy with the interrupted letter his aunt had seen in his portfolio.