You could almost hear the beating of that young heart, as she thus sat listening at his side, shrinking and trembling from the arm thrown around her waist, and turning in timid modesty from the eyes looking so ardently loving into the glistening depths of her own, striving to hide her feelings from those fondly searching eyes. And Charles—with the lightning’s rapidity came into his mind the words of the poet: “She loves me much, _because_ she hides it. Love teaches cunning even to innocence; And when he gets possession, his _first_ work Is to dig deep within the heart, and there Lie hid, and like a miser, in the dark To feast alone.” “_You_ will forget _me_ long ere you come back,” was her answer to his reiterated appeal. “Why need I, then, to answer?” And there was a tear almost in the liquid voice, as a vision of what her life would be, should such prove the truth, arose before her mind’s eye. “Forget _you_! Do you judge me from yourself, Edith, when you say that?” “Oh, no!” was the impulsive reply of the young maiden, as she hastily and unthoughtedly now answered him. “Oh, no indeed! But you, Mr. Lennard, are going to Europe; and you will see there so many, very many things and persons to make you forget _me_—a _school-girl_—an ignorant _child_. I was ashamed of myself before you, to think _I_ knew so little—so very little, and _you_—why you will blush for my ignorance, and _then_—how could you love me?” How sweet were those tones, so full of heart-music that he, luxuriating in them, hesitated to answer, that he might catch even their echo; but at length came his reply. “How could I love you! Rather ask, how can—how _could_ I help it. You are to me, Edith, more perfect than any human being I ever dreamed of or imagined; so lovely, darling, that when you burst on me first, in your young, pure loveliness, I was almost in doubt if you, indeed, belonged to our dull earth. _How could I love you!_” “What a simple question; yet, how deep in its very simplicity and artlessness. Yes, Edith, I almost ask myself the same question—how I could _dare_ to love one so like an angel. I will not suffer myself to search into my right—lest I say with truth, ‘’Twere as well to love some bright particular star And think to wed it.’ But, promise that you will love me—that you will think ever of me; and that when I return you will be my wife?”