"No, indeed! I did not; I cannot explain the impulse which led me hither. I only wish I had resisted it as I ought." I suppose I must have looked quite miserable, from the efforts he made to restore my self-complacency. He took the basket from my arm and placed it on the table, moved a chair forward for me, and another for himself, as if preparing for a morning _tete a tete_. "What would Mrs. Linwood say, if she saw me here at this early hour alone with her son?" thought I, obeying his motion, and tossing my hat on the light stairs that were winding up behind me. I did not fell the possibility of declining the interview, for there was a power about him which overmastered without their knowing it the will of others. "If you knew how much more pleasing is the innocent shame and artless sensibility you manifest, than the ease and assurance of the practised worldling, you would not blush for the impulse which drew you hither. To the sated taste and weary eye, simplicity and truth are refreshing as the spring-time of nature after its dreary winter. The cheek that blushes, the eye that moistens, and the heart that palpitates, are sureties of indwelling purity and candor. What a pity that they are as evanescent as the bloom of these flowers and the fragrance they exhale! You have never been in what is called the great world?" "Never. I passed one winter in Boston; but I was in deep mourning and did not go into society. Besides, your mother thought me too young. It was more than a year ago." "You will be considered old enough this winter. Do you not look forward with eager anticipations and bright hopes to the realization of youth's golden dreams?" "I as often look forward with dread as hope. I am told they who see much of the world, lose their faith in human virtue, their belief in sincerity, their implicit trust in what seems good and fair. All the pleasures of the world would not be an equivalent for the loss of these." "And do you possess all these now?" "I think I do. I am sure I ought. I have never yet been deceived. I should doubt that the setting sun would rise again, as soon as the truth of those who have professed to love me. Your mother, Edith--and"-- "Richard Clyde," he added, with a smile, and that truth-searching glance which often brought unbidden words to my lips. "Yes; I have perfect reliance in his friendship." "And in his love," he added; "why not finish the sentence?" "Because I have no right to betray his confidence,--even supposing your assertion to be true. I have spoken of the only feeling, whose existence I am willing to admit, and even that was drawn from me. What if _I_ turn inquisitor?" said I, suddenly emboldened to look in his face. "Have _you_, who have seen so much more of life, experienced the chilling influences which you deprecate for me?" "I am naturally suspicious and distrustful," he answered. "Have you never been told so?" "If I have, it required your own assertion to make me believe it."