"Oh, Camilla!" said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears, "be firm--be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which will speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me--you do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of mine there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!" Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own. "Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection. Has not my father consented? Reflect, it is but a year's delay!" "A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year? Not to see--not to hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your parents waver? Your father--I distrust him still. If this delay is but meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses found, --if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still refuse their assent? You--may I not still look to you?" Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said, timidly, "Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and do not suspect that my father will break his promise." "But, if he does, you will still be mine." "Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I could forget I am a daughter?" This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand with his kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued passionately,-- "You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my age. I have no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought. And I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla. I have never known even a passing fancy for another. You are the first--the only woman--it ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve--your presence my paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment till the year is past!"