And "Baby Minnie" feeling no harm to herself, certainly no wrong to another--held her peace "for pity's sake." "Should he ever say any thing more--more tender," she added, after a pause in her soliloquy, "then I'll tell aunt Dorcas!" Was it policy on his part not to startle, till he had secured, his timid bird? or was it that he really did not love her, that kept him silent? A little of both. He was not _quite_ sure of his own heart; it had been so bound up in the one great object of his life, that he feared lest he were incapable of loving Minnie as she should be loved; he was perfectly unselfish. Accustomed to deep suffering, he would rather have gone, leaving his love untold, and bearing even the charge, on her part, of being a mere trifler, than give her only a half affection. It was true his heart bounded when they met, and every moment in her absence was a thought of love for her. He walked alone, and conversed alone, to the spirit at his side, ever present with him; but he knew man's nature so completely under the control of his passions, that for her sake he resolved to prove his own heart before he offered it to her. If he felt he _ever_ could change, or love another, then would he leave without awakening her to the knowledge of her own affection, which he saw, but looked upon as a fledgling, which, by some accident, might never take wing. "Again here!" she said, on the day we have spoken of, in the old ruin. "Do you know this must terminate soon? Dora will return, and Mr. Skaife; and when he is here, Aunt Dorcas generally accompanies me, with him to escort us." "But not riding. She is not a horsewoman, you say?" "True; but Mr. Skaife, at her request, becomes my companion, then Dora will be with me every day." "Do you mean, Miss Dalzell, that I am never to see you?" and something like a sigh escaped him. "Oh! I hope not, indeed. I should feel grieved at so sad a termination to our many pleasant hours together; but what can be done to smooth our rugged path, for we cannot disguise from ourselves that a very rugged one lies between us?" "I never forget that! Would to heaven I could remove it! Time may--_will_, I should say," he cried, with energy; "but, to accomplish that glorious end, I must toil--toil--toil, and far away from this place, and----" he was going to say "you," he substituted "Yorkshire." "'Tis very hard that, when we have known one another from childhood----" "You forget I was a man _then_ even." "Well, then," she continued, "from _my_ childhood, that we should be debarred from meeting freely; but why do you always correct me when I say _our_ childhood? why are you so very anxious to make me remember that you are so much older than myself?" "I say it, lest _I_ should forget it." "How do you mean? Where would be the harm?" He looked at her so deeply, that her eyes fell beneath his glance, and she blushed.