The expressions that flitted over her face,—expressions of doubtful rapture, pettish incredulity, and childlike eagerness,—come back vividly to my remembrance. “You do not mean it!” at length she murmured, reproachfully. “From my inmost heart I mean it, and I desire it above all earthly desires,” I replied. She sank to the floor, and, clasping my knees with her arms, bowed her head upon them, and wept. Then, starting up, she said: “What! Your wife? Really your wife? Mistress and wife in one? Me,—a slave? Can it be, William, you desire it?” It was the first time she had called me by my first name. “Have you considered it well?” she continued. “O, I fear it would be ungenerous in me to consent. Such an alliance might jeopard all your future. You are young, well-connected, and can one day command all that the best society of the country can offer. No, William, not for me,—not for me the position of your wife!” I replied to these misgivings by putting on her shawl, then her bonnet, the tying of which I accompanied with a kiss that brought the roses to her cheeks. “Estelle,” I said, “unless we are very different from what we believe, the step is one we shall not regret. I must be degenerate indeed, if I can ever find anything in life more precious than the love you give and inspire. But perhaps you shrink from so binding a tie.” “Shrink from it?” she repeated, in a tone of abandonment to all that was rapturous and delightful in her conceptions, though the tears gushed from her eyes. “O, generous beyond my dreams! Would I might prove to you of what my love is capable, and how you have deepened its unfathomable depths by this last proof of your affection!” We went forth under the stars that beautiful evening to the well-known minister’s house. He received us kindly, asked us several questions, and, having satisfied himself of our intelligence and sincerity, united us in marriage. We gave him our real names,—William Carteret and Estelle Grandeau,—and he promised to keep the secret. Six weeks flew by, how swiftly! The pressure which circumstances had put upon Estelle’s buoyancy of character being taken away, she moved the very embodiment of joy. It was as if she was making up for the past repression of her cheerfulness by an overflow, constant, yet gentle as the superflux of a fountain. Her very voice grew more childlike in its tones. A touching gratitude that never wearied of making itself felt seemed added to an abounding tenderness towards me.