"In the course of conversation I mentioned to him the peculiar and interesting circumstance which had called us to New York, the girls both blushing and ejaculating in a duet, 'Oh don't, mamma!' But I know so well the heart of youth, both male and female, that I did not think it right to expose this young man to a misconception in regard to the position of my girls, more especially as ever since he had joined us he had sat and gazed at the seat which I occupied with my younger daughter with a look in his eyes which betrayed the secret of an inward and sudden yearning which was almost pain. To my surprise, the announcement of the approaching wedding of both my girls produced no especial effect upon him. He seemed interested, and indulged in a little graceful badinage; but this was what struck me as so strange: every time he spoke to the girls he was smiling and gay and joking, but every time he turned his eyes on me his expression of face, his whole manner, changed. His gaze became riveted on my features, and his soulful eyes lingered there with a fixity that abashed and disconcerted me. I could not understand it. Why did he look at me so? Years had passed since last that sort of gaze had been fastened upon my face, for it was a gaze which unmistakably says, 'You have made an impression upon me which I cannot resist: everything about you is pleasing to me.' Try as I would to avoid this look, turn my head as I might to escape the gaze of those bewitching eyes--even when I closed my own and feigned sleep--still I felt their tender rays upon me, and never once did I find it otherwise. "It is this point of the story, friends, where I feel confession so difficult. You who have known me for fifteen years, pursuing unswervingly the prosaic path of duty, will find it difficult to understand the power of the impression this stranger made upon my poor heart, widowed in its prime and at that moment about to be further robbed of all it had to love and cherish. All the years during which I had employed the most rigid rules of subjection over myself seemed to vanish like a mist. Every moment I felt more and more strongly a belief that this new-born passion was sincere, and knew that if it should really prove so the time when it would meet with full and grateful return on my part would not be far distant.