Ay, years had passed since our first meeting; and what had he not been to me since then? My adopted father, my kind guardian, my secure protector, my faithful friend, my devoted lover! As I thought of all this, and still looked at him, his kind, handsome face grew dim through gathering tears. "I will tell him all," I thought; "I will be ingenuous and good; tell him how truly, how ardently I love him." The words rose to my lips, and died away unuttered. Is the language in which woman utters such confessions yet invented? Oh! love and pride, tyrants of her heart, how sharp was your contest then in mine! He was bending over me with strange tormenting anxiety in his face. I bowed my head away from his gaze. He half drew me closer, half pushed me back; his hand sought, then rejected, mine. He saw my eyes overflowing. "Oh, Daisy, Daisy!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?" "Guess," was my involuntary reply. "Do not trifle with me," he said, in a tone of passionate entreaty--"do not." "Trifle with you! Could I, Cornelius?" "Prove it then." He stooped and looked up; for a moment my lips touched his cheek, whilst his lingered on my brow. Many a time before had Cornelius kissed me; but this was the first embrace of a love, mutual, ardent, and yet, God knows it, very pure--ay, far too religiously pure to trouble. And thus it was all understood--all known--all told--without a word. When I felt that the unconscious dream of my whole life was fulfilled; that I was everything to him who had so long been everything to me; when I looked up into his face, met his look, in which the affection of the tried friend, and the love of the lover, unequivocally blended, and knew that no other human being--not even his sister--could claim and fill that place where my heart had found its home, and that as I loved so was I loved,--I also felt that I had conquered fate; that I triumphed over by- gone sorrow, and could defy the might of time. I cried for joy, as I had often cried for grief on that kind heart which had sheltered my forsaken childhood and unprotected youth. "Tears!" he said, with a smile of reproach; and yet he knew well enough they were not tears of sorrow. "They will be to me what the rain has been to the night, Cornelius; a freshening dew." I went up to the open window; I leaned my brow on the cool iron bar; the morning air came in pure, chill, and fragrant. I shivered slightly. Cornelius, who had followed me, saw this, and wanted to close the window. "Do not," I said; "this cool, keen air is delightful. Then I like to watch the rising of that sun that thought to see you far on your journey, and that shall find you here. Besides, bow beautiful our little garden looks!" "Then come out into it for awhile."