"Better to break my heart than your mother's selfish command!" I said, bitterly, knowing, now, how she had probably been bound down to refuse me, should I again offer my love. O wise, far-reaching, far-seeing Mrs Clyde! "Do not be so unkind to me, Frank," said Min, half sobbingly, after a little time, during which I tried to keep down my own emotion; and, I felt a warm little tear drop on the hand in which I still clasped hers in a lingering clasp--"I have been a friend, though, to you; have I not, Frank?" she asked me. "Tell me, Min," I said, making a last appeal; "do you love me--have you ever loved me? Let me have some consolation, to comfort me!" "I must not say anything, must not promise anything. I have given my word to mamma. But, oh, Frank! do not be angry with me. Let us be friends still, won't you?" "No," said I, sternly--I wondered afterwards at my cruelty; but, I was goaded on to desperation, and hardly knew what I was saying.--"We part for ever now, Min! Your mother may certainly procure you a wealthier suitor, but none who can love you as truly as I do, as I have done! Good-bye. I dare say you will soon be happy with some one else; but, perhaps, you will think sometimes of him whom you have discarded, whose heart you have broken, whose life you have wrecked?--No, I do not want you to think of me at all!" I added, passionately, at the last--and then, I left her. What a walk home I had, in the early dawn! I would not take a cab, although several passed me. I wanted to be alone in my misery; and so, I walked the whole way to Saint Canon's-- three miles if it were an inch, over a rough, newly-stoned road, too, and in patent-leather boots with paper soles! I never thought of that, however, nor felt the stones, notwithstanding that my boots were entirely worn out when I reached home. I might have been walking along on a Brussels carpet, for all that I knew to the contrary! My thoughts were agony:--my mind, a perfect hell; and, that dreadful _Mabel_ waltz seemed to be continually running through my brain, tinkling the death knell of all my hopes! The tune always recurs to me, whenever my memory goes back to the night of that miserable evening party, with all its attendant scenes and circumstances; and, I hate it! Two bars of it whistled now, no matter where I heard them, or in what company I might chance to be, would bring me mentally face to face with my misery again! O Min, Min! She never knew how I loved her, or she would never have rejected me like this! This was my consolation--ample, wasn't it? CHAPTER SEVEN. HER LETTER. Ay de mi! Un anno felice, Parece un soplo ligero: Pero sin dicha un instante, Es un siglo de tormente. "--And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send, though ink be made of gall!" It was broad daylight when I got home.