“How can you ask? Whom does _everybody_ love best?—‘her nain sell,’ as the Welchman says, of course!” exclaimed the merry maiden. “Humph! Well, whom do you love the _next_ best to yourself?” “Why, let me see,” said the girl, pausing thoughtfully, with her needle poised in her hand; “I think, that next to myself, I love—Zuleime Clifton best of all the world!” “I thought so! And I can lay my hand upon my heart, and say, that you don’t love Zuleime Clifton a whit better than I do!—no, nor half so well! I’ll throw down my gage on that, and fight it out to extremity! Come!—What have you to say to that?” asked the young man, with all the earnestness in his face and manner that his light words wanted—“say, speak! What do you say to that?” “Why, that you are as foolish as Zuleime herself, in loving such a little, out-of-the-way baggage, that is neither woman nor child, nor good nor bad, nor any thing else in particular.” “Well, at any rate, we both agree in loving and worshiping Zuleime, however we may differ in our opinion of her—_I_, for instance, thinking her a beautiful, joyous, delightful girl. So, it’s settled, isn’t it?” “What is settled?” “Oh, you know, you tease!” “I know the weather is settled, if you mean _that_!” “Pooh!” “I _don’t_ know that the naval trouble with Great Britain is settled, if you mean _that_!” “Pooh, pooh!” “I know that the marriage dower of thirty thousand dollars is settled upon Carolyn, if you mean that!” “Pooh, pooh, pooh!” “Well, I shall not try to guess again, lest you should say, ‘Pooh, pooh, pooh, _pooh_!’—four times!” “Zuleime!” said the young man, earnestly, “I think, without presumption, I may say that I know your disposition towards me. Zuleime, I wish that we should pass all our lives together, side by side! I would like to open my heart and bid you look into it and read for yourself. I hate to say, ‘I love you,’ (though if you could look into my heart!) Oh, that phrase, ‘I love you,’ Zuleime, is so fallen, is so prostituted, so degraded from its high meaning—‘I love you’ so often means ‘I need your wealth,’ ‘need your family influence,’ ‘I desire your delightful beauty!’ Oh, Zuleime, dearest girl, how then shall I express my true, sincere, earnest devotion to you?” “You needn’t—I know you like me, Frank,” murmured Zuleime, very low. And then she added, lower still—“But I am nothing but a wild school-girl, and, seriously, I fear it isn’t right for me to listen to such words for years to come yet. And I fear father might not like it, only that he likes _you_ so very well.” And Zuleime bent over her sampler, diligently, commencing the next word, hope, in azure silk.