"I might have spared you and myself this foolish scene, then," said I, deeply mortified at its result. "I have incurred your ridicule, perhaps your contempt, in vain. We might have parted friends, at least." "No, by heavens! Gabriella, not friends; we must be something more, or less than friends. I did not think to say this now, but I can hold it back no longer. And why should I? 'All my faults perchance thou knowest.' As was the boy, as is the youth, so most likely will be the man. No! if you love me, Gabriella,--if I may look forward to the day when I shall be to you friend, brother, guardian, lover, all in one,--I shall have such a motive for excellence, such a spring to ambition, that I will show the world the pattern of a man, such as they never saw before." "I wish you had not said this," I answered, averting from his bright and earnest eye my confused and troubled glance. "We should be so much happier as friends. We are so young, too. It will be time enough years hence to talk of such things." "Too young to love! We are in the very spring-time of our life,--the season of blossoms and fragrance, music and love,--oh, daughter of poetry! is it you who utter such a thought? Would you wait for the sultry summer, the dry autumn, to cultivate the morning flower of Paradise?" "I did not dream you had so much hidden romance," said I, smiling at his metaphorical language, and endeavoring to turn the conversation in a new channel. "I thought you mocked at sentiment and poetic raptures." "Love works miracles, Gabriella. You do not answer. You evade the subject on which all my life's future depends. Is there no chord in your heart that vibrates in harmony with mine? Are there no memories associated with the oak trees of the wood, the mossy stone at the fountain, the sacred rose of the grave, propitious to my early and ever-growing love?" He spoke with a depth of feeling of which I had never thought him possessed. Sincerity and truth dignified every look and tone. Yes! there were undying memories, now wakened in all their strength, of the youthful champion of my injured rights, the sympathizing companion of my darkest hours; the friend, who stood by me when other friends were unknown. There was many a responsive chord that thrilled at his voice, and there was another note, a sweet triumphant note never struck before. The new-born consciousness of woman's power, the joy of being beloved, the regal sense of newly acquired dominion swelled in my bosom and flashed from my eye. But _the master-chord was silent_. I knew, I felt even then, that there was a golden string, down in the very depths of my heart, too deep for his hand to touch. I felt grieved and glad. Grieved that I could not give a full response to his generous offering,--glad that I had capacities of loving, he, with all his excellences, could never fill. I tried to tell him what I felt, to express friendship, gratitude, and esteem; but he would not hear me,--he would not let me go on.