“Do you think you could live here a quarter that period, Monsieur de Tourville?” inquired Julia, laughing. “Oh, yes, with a fair saint like yourself on the opposite side of the pool to give life and beauty to the scene.” “And to help to fry the trout you would catch in the said pool,” returned the lively girl, trying to climb a rock for a beautiful wild rose. Thornton and Marie de Tourville strolled into the grotto, leaving Julia collecting a wild nosegay, whilst Bill, having deposited the basket, scrambled up the rocks to see what was on the other side. Marie de Tourville sat down on the stone bench hewn out of the rock, either by the pious hermit or some hermit-loving disciple, and her companion placed himself beside her. “If ever a hermit lived here,” observed the young girl, looking around, “surely he must have had some other place of repose than this open grotto; you see it is of no extent, and in winter the blasts up the valley must have been piercing.” “Depend on it, the holy father took care of himself,” returned our hero; “at all events, if he lived here a hundred years he was blessed with a most excellent constitution.” “You seem to have no faith in the piety of monks and hermits,” observed Marie, with a smile. “Not much, I confess,” said our hero; “it requires to be a good Catholic to hear, see, and believe all we are told of their self-denial.” “Yet, you may be mistaken; you are aware I was reared a Protestant. Still I do not see that we have any right to doubt the piety of others, trusting chiefly to our biassed history of their lives and doings.” “I would not argue the point with so dangerous and so fair an antagonist,” said the Lieutenant, “I would rather,” he added, with a look of devoted affection, “plead my own cause,” and he laid his hand gently upon the fair and beautiful fingers that trembled at his touch, but were not drawn away. “It is needless for me to say that with my whole heart and soul I love you, Marie, for you must have read my affection before now. A strange and incomprehensible feeling drew me towards you the very first moment that we met; I call it strange, because when I gaze into your features an inexplicable idea rushes through my brain, a confusion of thoughts impossible to disentangle. But one feeling, however, struggles through the mist, and that is, that I adore you, and that to remain longer silent is impossible.” The hand he held trembled exceedingly as he added, “Beloved, my heart has dared to whisper that I am not wholly indifferent to you. One word, Marie, from your lips decides my fate.” He drew her gently towards him, and raising her eyes to his—they were full of tears—she said in a low sweet voice, and speaking, to his utter amazement, in English— “Is it possible, William, you never recognised little Mabel?” The blood rushed to William Thornton’s heart with overwhelming force, as with an uncontrollable emotion he caught her to his heart, exclaiming—