And under this conviction, she met him again, with her young heart full almost to bursting. She met him to tell him every thing that she knew or suspected of Rust, and his plans with reference to herself, and to caution him against him; to tell him to watch him; but above all, to incur no risk himself; to tell him that he and she must meet no more until he could vindicate his name to her father; to assure him, whatever others might say, or do, or think, that she believed not the slanders circulated against him; to beg him, that whatever others might say of her, or whatever attempts might be made to separate them, or whatever tales might be fabricated to make him doubt her faith and love, to believe them not; to set them down as the base coinage of a baser heart; and to believe that she loved him still; that in her heart of hearts he was still the same to her that he always had been; and that he ever would be, until that heart ceased to beat. She said this, and she said a thousand times more, for she was meeting him with the full resolve to meet him no more; with the full knowledge that their parting must be at all events a long one, perhaps a final one. They went over the same spots which they had lingered over in happier days; the same out-of-the-way haunts, where there were few to observe them; under the same old trees which stretched out their long branches, now naked and stripped of foliage; along the same bye-streets which they had selected on the day when he first learned that she loved him. They spoke but little; for all that Ned could do was to assert that the tales which had been repeated to her father were false; to wonder who the slanderer was, breathe forth vengeance against him, and to suggest the propriety of belaboring Rust soundly, and running the risk of the flogging falling on the right shoulders. And all that Kate could say in return was to repeat her utter disbelief in every thing that went to show that Ned was not all that she had supposed and wished him to be. Thus the day lingered on; and the time came for parting. They said but little, for there were no bright prospects to cheer them on: a few words of encouragement faintly spoken, for their hearts whispered that they were vain; a few broken words of hope, uttered in so sad a tone that they seemed a mockery; a stifled 'God bless you, Kate!' as he pressed her to his heart; a 'Good by, Ned,' half sobbed, and they parted, and Kate hurried to her own room; and hiding her face in her hands wept the bitterest tears that she had ever shed in her life. But the agony was over; they had parted; and now she told her father that they had met; and why; and that they were to meet no more until he could vindicate himself. The old man heard her out, contrary to her expectations, without an expression of anger, and merely said, that 'it was very well, as it was; that she did right to see him no more;' and that was all. IMPROMPTU. WRITTEN ON RECEIVING A ROSE-BUD FROM A LADY.