Mary has not yet spoken, but there is a silence more expressive than words--and expressive, as that which had followed Mr. Temple's declaration and so coldly fallen upon his trembling hopes, was, to Eugene Trevor, the silence which now hung upon her tongue. That blushing face, those tearful eyes, those smiling lips, spoke all that he desired to hear. They emboldened him so far as the pressing one of the soft hands, which now nervously grasped the chair beside him, and though it trembled, it was not withdrawn; and then the first overpowering flood of agitation subdued--Mary, her emotion soothed and composed, had told her love with "virgin pride--" and now sat calmly happy by her lover's side, listening to his earnest conversation on many points connected with that future now before them; yes whatever might have been the nature of his feelings on the occasion, how intense and delicious were _her_ sensations of happiness; for as it is expressed in the pages of the book to which we have, in the last chapter, had occasion to allude: "In the pure heart of a young girl loving for the first time, love is far more ecstatic than in man's more fevered nature. Love then and there, makes the only state of human existence which is at once capable of calmness and transport." CHAPTER XII. She hath flung Her all upon the venture of her vow, And in her trust leans meekly, like a flower, By the still river tempted from its stem And on its bosom floating. WILLIS. Mary did not feel quite equal to face her cousin and his friend in her present state of mind; therefore, on the first movement making itself heard in the direction of the library, she took alarm and escaped up stairs, leaving Trevor, who did not suffer the same shamefaceness, to undergo the encounter alone. Mary first went to her own room, then shortly after, trying to look as if nothing had happened, proceeded to Mrs. Trevyllian's apartment, to wish her cousin good night. She found the ladies both reclining on their respective sofas, and was cordially welcomed by each, as if by this time they had began to have had enough of each other's uninterrupted society. "Do you know that Mr. Trevor is here?" Mary murmured to her cousin, with averted countenance. "Why, I fancied you had a visitor of some sort," Mrs. de Burgh replied with a smile of arch significance. "Was I not good to leave you undisturbed?" she added at the same time in a whisper, trying to catch a glimpse of Mary's face, whilst Mrs. Trevyllian turned upon it a glance of such scrutinizing curiosity, that Mary finding this an ordeal, unendurable for the present, bade them "good night," and made her escape back to the sheltered sanctity of her solitary chamber, where no intruding gaze could pierce, to meddle with the shrinking, modest joy, which overflowed her heart.