Thus passed on month after month, and Minnie was unconsciously drinking deep from that fountain of freshness which had so lately sprung up in her lonely path, while Hubert lived in the full enjoyment of all that sweet unconsciousness, which lent such a charm to her manners, such new loveliness to her gentle face. It was not until more than two years had passed that, in an unguarded moment, he was led into such a warm expression of his feelings as to require some decided explanation. He then spoke out plainly and manfully, avowed his love and asked Minnie to become his wife. Terrified at the excess of her own emotions, shocked at her own apparent ingratitude toward her benefactors in being thus made happy by what she could not hope they would approve, Minnie could only weep. But when Hubert assured her that his parents would willingly receive her as a daughter, she gave her whole soul up to the enjoyment of such unlooked for bliss. Yet, even in that moment of full unrestrained affection, why did Hubert counsel silence for the present, and secrecy until he should fix the moment for frank disclosure? Convinced that matters were going on as they wished, the old people asked no questions. Perhaps Mrs. Woodley was not sorry to defer the period which would elevate Minnie from the humble position of a poor relation into the condition of an equal, so Hubert was allowed to manage matters in his own way, and a stranger would have seen nothing in the manner of the quiet family which portended any change among them. Indeed to no one but Minnie herself had this new state of affairs made any difference. To her, the sad and lonely and unloved orphan, the consciousness of being at last beloved for her own sake, lent a charm to every thing in life. But her heart had been too early crushed to regain the elasticity and buoyancy which ought to have belonged to her youth. She was happy, deeply, entirely happy, but no one could have suspected the fervid thankfulness of her prayerful happiness, beneath the quiet demeanor which had now become so habitual to her. It was when alone, in the solitude of her own chamber, that she gave way to the emotions which almost overpowered her. It was on her knees that she poured out the fullness of her joy to Heaven—it was only for the eye of her Heavenly Father to see the swelling surges of that sea of happy emotion, which she was too timid, too self-distrustful to exhibit to her lover.