“I thought it was you!” she repeated in a thrilling whisper, and again, and more drowsily—“Thank God!” The church bells, chiming the half-hour notice of evening service, went on with the music of her dream. Thor, enacting a second time the role of _Deus ex machina_, thought this an auspicious moment for thrusting his cold nose against her cheek. With a stifled scream she attempted to rise, and catching her foot in the shawl, would have fallen had not March rushed forward to her help. Having taken her hands to restore her to her balance, he continued to hold them. She struggled to free them—but feebly. Surprise and confusion had robbed her of strength and self-possession. “I thought—they said—that is, Perry saw you take the train for New York,” she managed to articulate. “Hetty!”—imploringly, while the eyes she had seen in her vision overflowed hers with loving light—“why do you shun me so persistently? Are you determined never to hear how dear you are to me?” CHAPTER VII. THIS, then, was the outcome of March Gilchrist’s iron-clad resolve to forget in serious work one who could never make him or his family happy! Verily, the ways and variations of a man in love are past finding out by ordinary means and everyday reasoning. Our sensible swain could only plead with his sister in defense of his fast grown passion, that the girl “suited him.” Having decided within eight hours that no alliance could be more unsuitable than one with Mr. Wayt’s wife’s sister, he had cast himself headforemost into the thick of impassioned declaration of a devotion the many waters of doubt could not drown, or the fires of opposition destroy. Dizzied and overwhelmed as she was by his vehemence, Hetty was the first to regain the firm ground of reason. He had seated her, with gentle respect, upon the cushion that had pillowed her head, and dropping on one knee, the “true, bonny eyes” alight with eagerness, poured out the story whose outlines we know. Earnestness took the tinge of happiness as he was suffered to proceed; the deep tones shook under the weight of emotion. Not until she made a resolute effort to disengage her hands, and he saw the burning blushes fade into dusky pallor and her eyes grow set and troubled, did his heart begin to sink. Then the gallant, knightly soul forbore importunity that might be persecution. If his suit distressed her for any cause whatsoever, he would await her disposition to hearken to the rest. Releasing her, he arose and stood a little space away, respectfully attending upon her pleasure. “I did not mean to impose all this upon reluctant ears,” he said, when she did not speak. Her face was averted, her hands pressed hard together. The rust-brown bandeaux, ruffled by the pressure of her head upon the pillow, gleamed in the dying sunlight like a nimbus. The slight, girlish figure was not a Madonna’s. It might be a Mary at the tomb in Bethany before the “Come forth!” was spoken.