So of the confidence which at once began to exist between the two lovers. Yes--let the word be set down--lovers. When Josephine Harris accompanied Tom Leslie to the door, on the night of his first visit to her at home, he held out his arms to her, without a word, and she nestled into them in the same silence, and returned the first kiss he pressed upon her lips. Thenceforth their lips, we may believe, belonged exclusively to neither, but had a divided interest. What matter, thereafter, how many times they were pressed together, or how long that pressure lingered? What matter how many words they spoke, or what formed the burden of those words? They had accidentally touched, when drifting down the stream of life, and who should thenceforth have power to separate them? A month before, Tom Leslie, who had had fifty flirtations or less, would have laughed at the idea of being "in love," with what seemed like a life-passion; and even three days before Josephine Harris would have considered such an event, on her part, not undesirable, but simply impossible. So much for what we know, to-day, of that which is to exist to-morrow, even in the "best-regulated families!" It was on the third visit paid to the house by Leslie, that Josephine communicated to him her intention to be absent from the city for a week or ten days, visiting some friends in one of the country sections reached by the New York Central Railroad; after which she was again to return to the city and accompany her mother, late in July, on her annual pilgrimage to the Ocean House at Newport. She would leave for the north on one of the first days of July--perhaps the Third or the Fourth. Strangely enough, Leslie had arranged to go to Niagara for a few days, at about the same time, and he suddenly found it a matter of no consequence that he should go by the Erie Road, as he had at first intended. Subsequent inquiries proved that the young girl would go unattended, and leave the railroad at Utica, taking stage for the short remainder of her journey. Leslie felt it almost a matter of inexcusable impudence, after so short an acquaintance, to ask the favor of timing his journey by hers and being her escort so far as Utica; but he dared the risk, as he had dared many a risk before, from things quite as deadly as woman's eyes; and he did _not_ meet even one objection or expression of embarrassment. Josephine Harris accepted his escort as freely as offered, and seemed rather pleased than otherwise! How absurd, and in fact how improper! She should have blushed, simpered, and hinted that she would be very much pleased with his escort--but--so short an acquaintance--all her friends would know it--what would people say?--etc., etc. Joe Harris did not understand all these things, exactly; but the next woman would have acted out that role to perfection.