“You know, Lisa, that I met Mr. Stuart frequently at my aunt’s last winter. He is a great favorite with her, and the only one among her young men acquaintances whose actual intimacy she solicits. Whenever he came we were left together, naturally enough, while my aunt and uncle busied themselves, one with her housekeeping and the other with his papers. There was always a congeniality of tastes between us that led to an absence of any thing like ceremony, and something like confidence arose in our intercourse. There were books discussed that both had read, and many that I had never seen, which I was to like because he did. Wherever we went in the evenings he went. He was always there to draw my arm through his, and offer me the conventional attentions that became so delightful at length. We never spoke of love, Lisa; we never talked sentiment _at_ one another, but it was impossible to deny that—that—” “You loved one another,” said Lisa, seriously. She put on no arch looks, affected no jests—this was a grave subject to her. “But we never said so, Lisa,” said Blanche, quickly. “We never said so; it was enough for us to be together. One morning I received a note from Helen Clarke, begging me go to her as she was very ill. My aunt’s carriage took me to Evergreen, and I remained a week absent. On my return I found that _he_ had been summoned to his mother’s dying bed, and had hurried off an hour after the letter came, taking time only to see my aunt and bid her adieu. ‘He asked earnestly after you, Blanche,’ said she, smiling; ‘and your absence grieved him deeply, my love. But he left a message expressive of it all, and ended it with, Tell her, my dear Mrs. Bliss, that I will return as soon as I can, and she must not forget me.’ I could not forget him, Lisa; but I despise a love-sick girl as I do the plague; so I came home, determined to be happy again among you all. I would have been ungrateful, indeed, to mope at home where we all love one another—to pine for a stranger, while I had still all that made life so dear. Of course, he never wrote to me—my aunt heard occasionally from him, and the letter announcing his return, affected me deeply. Would he still be the same, or was there a change?” “And there was none,” said Lisa, in a low voice. “I know that now, Blanche, though I did not dream of this before. Blind creature that I was, not to have felt that we must part after all!” “I have read in his looks that there is no change, Lisa,” said her sister, growing pale. “I know that he will tell me so this very day, for he begged me to remain at home this evening to see him. But, Lisa, if you do not like him—if it grieves you too much to have me give up my home for his, say so at once, and I will never leave you.” Her lips quivered and her hand shook, but the voice was steady, and she looked at Lisa with her calm, clear eyes until she felt those fond arms once more thrown around her.