“Did you, my dearest one! did you, indeed, miss me—such a gray, wrinkled, careworn wretch as I am?” he said. She bent over him with caressing tenderness. It was true! Six months before this time there had not been one silver thread in the raven tresses, or one line on the ivory forehead of Colonel Eastworth; but now care had streaked his hair with gray, and the constant habit of frowning had planted deep wrinkles between his brows. Erminie leaned over him with caressing tenderness, and pressed her lips to that spot on the top of his head where the thin hair indicated swiftly approaching baldness. “I love you more for every white hair and every deep wrinkle; they are indices of thought and of suffering; and how can I but love you more for them?” murmured Erminie, laying her soft cheek upon his head. “Come around here, my own! my own! I am your husband, or soon to be so! Sit where I can see your sweet face!” he pleaded, reaching behind him and getting hold of her hand and trying to draw her around. “I will sit here and look up into your face—ever the most beloved face in the universe to me!” murmured Erminie, softly, as she drew a footstool to his feet and seated herself upon it, and placed her hand in his. “Erminie,” he said, bending over her and gazing and speaking with an earnestness approaching solemnity, “Erminie, do you really, really love me?” She looked up at him with a frightened aspect, and answered slowly: “Oh, you know I do! You cannot doubt me! What made you ask such a question?” “Because, my beloved, I am about to put your love to a terrible test!” he replied, with an agitation that powerfully appealed to her sympathies. “That is just what I wish you to do! what I pray you to do! Put my love to any test—any! so that I may prove to you how truly I love you—how much I would do for you!” she answered, in a low, fervent, faltering voice; and blushing intensely at her own temerity, even while feeling so anxious to reassure her lover. “Erminie, the test by which I shall prove your love will be the severest test by which the love of a nature like yours could possibly be tried.” “It will not be too severe for mine! I invoke the trial! I invoke it!” “Erminie, do you love me enough to henceforth cast your lot with mine, for good and evil, for time and eternity?” “Ah, yes, yes, yes! But that is not the test, for surely every woman loves her betrothed as much as that! But I love you, oh, so much more!” she murmured, hiding her face in his caressing hands. “You love me enough to forsake all and follow me?” “Oh, yes, yes! Did I not promise that on the blessed day when my dear father placed my hand in yours in solemn betrothal?” “You will cleave to me, to me only, forever and ever, through good report and through evil report?” “As my soul lives, I will!” fervently exclaimed the Lutheran minister’s daughter, uttering the rashest vow that was ever spoken by trusting lips.