"Why, no!" replied Jameson, with a smile; "but I took a little pains to inquire about the localities of this old nest up at the village. The good people had seen Miss Hurst leave the stage an hour before and walk over this way. It seems very natural that he may hear it from that quarter." Byrne looked at his companion a moment almost sternly, then dropping his eyes to the ground, he began to dash aside the rich blossoms from a tuft of pansies with his cane. "You do not approve of this?" said Jameson, studying his companion's countenance. "No." "Why, it can do no harm. What would the girl be to me without her expectations. I tell you her father will pay any sum rather than allow a shadow of disgrace to fall upon her. I will marry her at all hazards; but it must be kept secret, and in a little time some hint of this romantic excursion will be certain to reach head-quarters; and I shall have the old man as eager for the marriage as any of us, and ready to come down handsomely, too. I tell you it makes every thing doubly sure." "It may be so," said the other, in a dissatisfied manner. "Well, like it or not, I can see no other way by which you will be certain of the three thousand dollars that you won of me," replied Jameson, coolly. Byrne dashed his cane across the pansies, sending the broken blossoms in a shower over the gravel-walks. "Well, manage as you like, the affair is nothing to me, but it smacks strongly of the scoundrel, Herbert, I can tell you that." "Pah! this little plot of mine will probably amount to nothing. The old gentleman may give in at once to the tears and caresses of my sweet bride up yonder. Faith, I doubt if any man could resist her." "More than probable--more than probable!" rejoined the other; "but I should not like to be within the sight of that girl's eye if she ever finds out the game you have been playing." "Yes, it would be very likely to strike fire," replied Jameson, carelessly; "but she loves me, and there is no slave like a woman that loves. You will see that before the year is over, every spark that flashes from her eyes I shall force back upon her heart till it burns in, I can tell you. But there she is, all in bridal white, and fluttering like a bird around the old stoop. Come, we must not keep her waiting!" Meantime, Florence Hurst had entered a little chamber, where, nineteen years before, she first opened her eyes to the light of heaven. It was at one end of the house, and across the window fell the massive boughs of an old apple-tree, heaped with masses of the richest foliage, and rosy with half-open blossoms. A curtain of delicate lace fluttered before the open sash, bathed in fragrance, and through which the rough brown of the limbs, the delicate green in which the rosy buds seemed matted, gleamed as through a wreath of mist.