his own way and he could not have it; and he knew he ought not to have it, and he would not give it up. If he could have kicked at the world, and strangled Nature and made an end of Reason, always without making a fool of himself, that would have been the course of action most in consonance with his thoughts. And it was just then that a certain flutter round the corner of the lane which led to Dewsbury caught his eye--the flutter of the soft evening air in a black dress. It was not the “_creatura bella vestita in bianca_” which comes up to the ideal of a lover’s fancy. It was a little figure in a black dress, with a cloak wrapped round her, and a broad hat shading her face, all dark among the twilight shadows. Jack saw, and his heart sprang up within him with a violence which took away his breath. He made but one spring across the road. When they had parted they had not known that they were lovers; but now they had been a week apart and there was no doubt on the subject. He made but one spring, and caught her and held her fast. “Pamela!” he cried out; and though there had been neither asking nor consent, and not one word of positive love-making between them, and though no disrespectful or irreverent thought of her had ever entered his mind, poor Jack, in his ardor and joy and surprise and rage, kissed her suddenly with a kind of transport. “Now I have you at last!” he cried. And this was in the open road, where all the world might have seen them; though happily, so far as was apparent, there was nobody to see. Pamela, too, gave a cry of surprise and fright and dismay. But she was not angry, poor child. She did not feel that it was unnatural. Her poor little heart had not been standing still all this time any more than Jack’s. They had gone over all those tender, childish, celestial preliminaries while they were apart; and now there could not be any doubt about the bond that united them. Neither the one nor the other affected to believe that farther preface was necessary--circumstances were too pressing for that. He said, “I have you at last,” with eyes that gleamed with triumph; and she said, “Oh, I thought I should never, never see you again!” in a voice which left nothing to be confessed. And for the moment they both forgot every thing--fathers, mothers, promises, wise intentions, all the secondary lumber that makes up the world.