"Will you remember me, Rosalie?" "Yes!" "Will you keep your hand for me for a year?" "Yes!" "Will you answer me when I write to you?" "Yes!" "One request more--O Rosalie, reflect that my life depends upon your acquiescence--should I succeed, will you marry me in spite of your uncle?" {23} "Yes," answered Rosalie. There was no pause--reply followed question, as if it were a dialogue which they had got by heart--and by heart _indeed_ they had got it--but I leave you to guess the book they had conned it from. 'Twas in a green lane, on a summer's evening, about nine o'clock, when the west, like a gate of gold, had shut upon the retiring sun, that Rosalie and her lover, hand in hand, walked up and down. His arm was the girdle of her waist; hers formed a collar for his neck, which a knight of the garter--ay, the owner of the sword that dubbed him--might have been proud to wear. Their gait was slow, and face was turned to face; near were their lips while they spoke, and much of what they said never came to the ear, though their souls caught up every word of it. Rosalie was upwards of five years the junior of her lover. She had known him since she was a little girl in her twelfth year. He was almost eighteen then, and when she thought far more about a doll than a husband, he would set her upon his knee, and call her his little wife. One, two, three years passed on, and still, whenever he came from college, and as usual went to pay his first visit at her father's, before he had been five minutes in the parlor, the door was flung open, and in bounded Rosalie, and claimed her accustomed seat. The fact was, till she was fifteen, she was a child of a very slow growth, and looked the girl when many a companion of hers of the same age had begun to appear the woman. When another vacation however came round and Theodore paid his customary call, and was expecting his little wife as usual, the door opened slowly, and a tall young lady entered, and curtseying, colored, and walked to a seat next the lady of the house. The visitor stood up and bowed, and sat down again, without knowing that it was Rosalie. "Don't you know Rosalie," exclaimed her father. "Rosalie!" replied Theodore in an accent of surprise; and approached his little wife of old who rose and half gave him her hand, and curtseying, colored again; and sat down again without having interchanged a word with him. No wonder--she was four inches taller than when he had last seen her, and her bulk had expanded correspondingly; while her features, that half a year before gave one the idea of a sylph that would bound after a butterfly, had now mellowed in their expression, into the sentiment, the softness, and the reserve of the woman.