I was very young and very innocent. Of love I had read little, and seen less. So long as it came not to me in visible aspect; so long as I felt not within myself some great change, I dreamt not of it. There is a love that lies in the heart unconscious of itself, like a child asleep in its cradle--and this I had never suspected. There is a love which grows with onr years, until it becomes part of our being; which never agitates, because it has no previous indifference, no remembrance of the time in which it was not, against which to strive; which has purer and deeper signs than the beating heart, the blushing cheek, the averted look--and all this I knew not. Where there is no resistance, there can be no struggle; but because there is no struggle shall any one dare to say-- there is no victory? Reduce to logic the least logical of all passions, and argue with a feeling that smiles at argument, and disdains to reply. Had I then loved Cornelius even as a child? loved him with that purer part of affection which needs not to wait for the growth of years? God alone knows. Love is a great mystery; it is easy to remember the time of its discovery, but wise, indeed, are they who can tell the hour and moment of its birth. I had the wisdom not to ask myself so useless a question. The past vanished from my thoughts; it was all future now. I looked at the eastern sky; it was reddening fast, and grew more bright and burning as I looked. With the superstition of the heart, I watched the dawn of that day, as that which opened my new existence, and for all of the past that it revealed, and I had never seen; for all of the future that it promised, and I had never hoped. I gave thanks to God. I know not how long I had been thus, when a tap at my door disturbed me. I rose, opened, and saw Kate. She made me turn my face to the light, then half smiled, and said: "Cornelius wants to speak to you; he is quite in a way. Pray come down." I followed her down stairs in silence. She opened the back parlour door, closed it, and left me. I stood still; all the blood in my frame seemed to have rushed to my beating heart. It was one thing to be alone with Cornelius, my friend, and another to find myself thus suddenly brought to the presence of Cornelius, my lover. He sat by the open window; beyond it rose the green garden trees tinged with a rosy light, and above them spread the blushing sky. A fresh breeze came in bearing soft sounds of rustling leaves and twittering songs of wakening birds. He too had watched the dawning day; but there seemed to have been at least as much sorrow as love in his vigil. He looked pale, weary, and slowly turned around as I entered. He saw me standing at the door, rose, and came up to me without speaking. I looked at him like one in a dream. He took my passive hand in his, and gave me a troubled glance, then suddenly he passed his other arm around me, looking down at me with the saddest face.