Kate shook her head and waved her hand in that quick, short manner which was peculiar to her, and turned away—repeating in her own heart the question—“Yes, why, _why_, WHY?” Whether the maiden found an answer to her question or not, remained a secret to Carl; this was the first and last conversation they ever held on the subject; and whatever phenomena the opening heart of the maiden revealed to herself, were carefully shrouded away from the eyes of all. * * * * * How beautiful was Carolyn Clifton! So fair, so purely, so divinely fair, so radiant, so refined, so stately! How fit a consort for the proud Archer Clifton! How his heart swelled with admiration and pride as he gazed upon her queenly form—and how it glowed to think that in a very few days that fair and stately lady, who never deigned to own a passion, whose love he only guessed by her proud exaction of exclusive service, who scarcely condescended to extend her snowy hand to his salute—would be his own, his own, his wife, his property, his other self—whose form he might press to his bosom in the fullest freedom of possession! And as he sat by her side and held her hand, and gazed upon her inaccessible, delightful beauty; oh! how slowly, slowly, to his impatient, burning, throbbing heart—how slowly, dragged the days and hours. Well—oh very well would it have been for Archer Clifton, could he have rent his gaze from his magnetic idol a moment, and caught a certain pair of evil eyes upon him. Their baleful glare might have shed upon his path some light to the pitfalls in his way. CHAPTER V. The Old Man and His Bride. There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we will.—SHAKSPEARE.