ejaculating, 'Why, then, do you marry him?' She smiled at my earnestness. 'Oh, that is all arranged,' she said, 'and I have nothing to do with it. I have known for more than a year that I'm to marry Colonel Kaldhein, but I cannot say that I have given myself much concern about it until recently. It now occurs to me that if I expect to amuse myself in the way I best like I must lose no time doing so.' I looked at the girl with earnest interest. 'It appears to me,' said I, 'that your ways of amusing yourself are very much like mine.'--'That is true,' she said, looking up with animation, 'they are. Is it not delightful to be free, to go where you like, and do what you please, without any one to advise or interfere with you?'--'It is delightful,' said I; and for half an hour we sat and talked about these delights and kindred subjects. She was much interested in our castle, and urged me to make a sketch of it, so that she may know what it now looked like. She had seen it when a little girl, but never since, and had been afraid to wander very far in this direction by herself. I told her that it would be far better for her to see the castle with her own eyes, and that I could conduct her to an eminence, not half a mile away, where she could have an excellent view of it. This plan greatly pleased her; but looking at her watch she said that it would be too late for her to go that morning, but if I happened to come that way the next day, and she should be there to finish her sketch, she would be delighted to have me show her the eminence." "I think," interrupted Aunt Martha, "that she was a very imprudent young woman." "That may be," he replied, "but you must remember, madam, that up to this time the young lady had been subjected to the most conventional trammels, and that her young nature had just burst out into temporary freedom and true life. It was the caged bird's flight into the bright summer air." "Just the kind of birds," said Aunt Martha, "that shouldn't be allowed to fly, at least until they are used to it. But you can go on with your story." "Well," said the young man, "the next day we met I took her to the piece of high ground I had mentioned, and she sketched the castle. After that we met again and again, nearly every day. This sort of story tells itself. I became madly in love with her, and I am sure she liked me very well; at all events I was a companion of her own age and tastes, and such a one, she assured me, she had never known before, and probably would never know again." "There was some excuse for her," said Aunt Martha; "but still she had no right to act in that way, especially as she was so soon to be married." "I do not think that she reasoned much upon the subject," said the young man, "and I am sure I did not. We made no plans. Every day we thought only of what we were doing or saying, and not at all what we had done or would do. We were very happy.