Mere boy as I was, my heart had been deeply moved by the beauty of Miss Ella Carlos, I often waited upon her all day without feeling the least fatigue; and at night my dreams were full of her. I don't think that she was wholly insensible to my devotion, but it seemed a matter of amusement and curiosity to her. I remember, one day--Oh, how should I forget it, for it formed a strong link of evil in my unhappy destiny,--that I was sitting on the bank of the river, making a cross-bow for my pretty young lady out of a tough piece of ash, for she wanted to play at shooting at a mark, and she and Master Walter were sitting beside me watching the progress of my work, when the latter said-- "I wish I were two years older." "Why do you wish that, Watty?" asked Ella. "Because papa says I am to go into the army at sixteen, and I do so long to be a soldier." "But you might be killed." "And I might live to be a great man like the Duke of Wellington," said he with boyish enthusiasm. "So, Madame Ella, set the one chance against the other." "But it requires more than mere courage, Walter, to make a great man like him. I have heard papa say--and he fought under him in Spain--that it takes a century to produce a Wellington." "I think papa did the Duke great injustice," said Walter. "There is not one of the heroes of antiquity to compare to him. Julius Caesar was not a greater conqueror than Napoleon, and Wellington beat him. But great as the Duke is, Miss Ella, he was a boy once--a soldier of fortune, as I shall be; and who knows but that I may win as great a name?" "It is a good thing, to have a fine conceit of one's self," said the provoking girl. "And what would you like to be, Noah?" she cried, with a playful smile, and turning her bright, blue eyes on me. "An Oliver Cromwell at least, as he was a man of the people; and you seem to have as good a headpiece as my valiant brother." "I wish," I said with a sigh, which I could not repress, "that I were a gentleman." "Perhaps you are as near obtaining your wish as Walter is. And why, Noah, do you wish to be a gentleman? You are much better off if you only knew it, as you are." I shook my head. "Come answer me, Noah, I want to know." "Indeed, Miss Ella, I cannot." "You can, and shall." I looked earnestly into her beautiful face. "Oh, Miss Ella, can you ask that?" "Why not? Your reasons, Mr. Noah. Your reasons." My eyes sought the ground. I felt the colour glow upon my cheeks, and I answered in a voice trembling with emotion,--"Because, if I were a gentleman, Miss Ella, I might then hope that you would love me; and that I might one day ask you for my wife." The young thing sprang from the ground as if stung by a viper, her eyes flashing and her cheek crimson with passion. "_You_ are an impertinent, vulgar fellow," she cried! "_You_ dare to think of marrying a lady! _You_, who have not even fortune to atone for your plebeian name and low origin! Never presume to speak to me again!"