“Raymond, make friends with me! I will do anything in the world you wish me to do—come! I will leave undone all you wish me so to leave, if you will make friends with me again;” and a tearless heart-sob breaking from her lips showed how great had been the pang of her vanquished pride. He lifted her head from its resting-place, smoothed back the ringlets of her hair, and holding her face between the palms of his hands, gazed smilingly into her eyes, with a look, half of love, half triumph, and said, “You will? but then your ‘separate soul—will—individuality’—what are you to do with it all? Answer me—I want a literal reply, in words—” “I don’t know!—how do _I_ know?—don’t seek to humble me, dear Raymond—I am tortured!—tortured!—tortured!” “Tortured?” “Yes!—yes!” exclaimed she, wildly,—“_tortured!_” “Who tortures you, my piquant little love, my little vial of sal-volatile?” said he, condescendingly, caressing her. “You do, Raymond!—and myself!—myself tortures me!” “Why, so it seems.” “Yes, Raymond, understand me, and help me to understand myself. I only lately began to know myself. I am a strange blending of pride and aspiration!—and of love, and through love, fear!—the eagle and the dove!—alas, bear with me!—hold my throbbing temples between your cool hands, Raymond—_your_ hands are _always_ cool—so!—now calmly, I do not know that there is anything to make me wild, or angry, just now—yet these clashing and conflicting elements do so war in my nature—listen, Raymond! when you angered me this morning, and left me, the aroused passion of my soul heaved and set like the sea in a storm, leaping from its bed and lashing the shores! I could not have believed it possible that you _could_ have angered me so—or being angered so, that I could have got over it so; and now that is gone, and—never wound my poor dove because my eagle has stuck her beak and claws into you—” “No, love, the dove shall never be wounded, but _the claws and wings of the eagle shall be clipped_,” said he, looking steadily in her anguished eyes. “Don’t reply to me yet, Hagar, you are about to say something that will make more trouble between us.” Then with a dry sob and gasp, Hagar’s heart shrank into silence, and he smiled to see it, and all this while he was lightly caressing her—running his fair fingers through her glossy hair, and kissing her lips from time to time. At last she said— “I have been thinking what to do with my favorites, Starlight and the pointers.” “And has your unassisted wisdom arrived at any conclusion, my love?” “Yes, I will leave them here, in the care of Tarquinius, for a while; then, perhaps, after a while, when we get settled, you will not object to have them.”