As he said this, the dark and lustrous eyes of the Castilian girl filled with half-subdued fire; her lashes drooped, and she heaved a long sigh. "You speak of love," she said, in a low voice, while her bosom swelled beneath its scarlet corset and the thin muslin habit-shirt that was gathered round her slender throat; "all men are alike to a woman who is not in love; but in my heart I feel an emotion which tells me that if I loved there would be to me but one only in the world--he, my lover!" Her calm energy, and the deep sudden glance she shot at Quentin, quite bewildered the poor fellow. "Tell me," she resumed, while his left hand was caressed in both of hers, and her right cheek yet rested on his shoulder, while the massive curls of her hair fell over him, "is there not something delicious in the mystery and tremulousness of love; to feel that we are no longer two, but one--ONE in heart and soul, in thought and sympathy? Speak--you do not answer me--estrella mia--mi vida--mi alma!" (my star--my life--my soul) she added, in a low but piercing accent. Trembling with deep emotion, Quentin pressed his lips to her burning brow, and there ensued a long pause, during which she lay with her forehead against his cheek. "Listen to me, Quentin," said she, looking upward with swimming eyes; "I would speak with you seriously, earnestly, from my heart." "Niña de mi alma--about what?" "Religion, love." "You choose an odd time for it--but wherefore?" "I would teach you mine," she whispered. "Yours--and for what purpose?" "That--that----" "Nay, I have courage enough to hear anything, dearest; for what purpose, mi querida?" "That endearing term decides me--that we may be married, Quentin." "I--senora!" "You and I--what is there wonderful in that?" Had a shell exploded between them, poor Quentin could not have been more nonplussed than by this proposition. "Flirtation is a very fine thing," says his Peninsular comrade, Charles O'Malley, "but it's only a state of transition, after all; the tadpole existence of the lover would be very great fun, if one was never to become a frog under the hands of the parson." Some such reflection occurred to Quentin, who stammered-- "But, Isidora, people require money to marry." "Of course--sometimes." "Well, I am not the heir of a shilling in the world." "Nor am I the heiress of a pistole." "Well, dearest Isidora----" "Who should marry if we don't, whose circumstances are equal, and whose position in the world is so exactly similar? Ah, that we had the Padre Florez here!" Though this was said with the sweetest of smiles, Quentin failed to see the force of her reasoning; but it was impossible to refrain from kissing the rounded cheek that lay so near his own. Then an emotion of compunction stole into his heart, and rousing her from the delicious trance into which she seemed sinking, he withdrew a little (for he had never been made love to before, so surprise gave him courage), and then said--