The rein dropped from her fingers--the rifle fell upon the neck of her horse, and she sat gazing at me in speechless surprise. At length, in a low murmur, and as if mechanically, she repeated the words: "My sister Lilian?" "Yes, Marian Holt--your sister." "My name! how can you have become acquainted with it? You know my sister?" "Know her, and love her--I have given her my whole heart." "And she--has she returned your love?" "Would that I could say surely yes! Alas! I am still in doubt." "Your words are strange. O sir, tell me who you are! I need not question what you have said. I perceive that you know my sister--and who I am. It is true: I am Marian Holt--and you? you are from Tennessee?" "I have come direct from it." "From the Obion? perhaps from--" "From your father's clearing on Mud Creek, Marian." "Oh! this is unexpected--what fortune to have met you, sir! You have seen my sister then?" "I have." "And spoken with her? How long ago?" "Scarcely a month." "So lately! And how looks she? She was well!" "How looks she?--Beautiful, Marian, like yourself. She was well, too, when I last saw her." "Dear Lilian!--O sir! how glad I am to hear from her! Beautiful I know she is--very, very beautiful. Ah me!--they said I was so too, but my good looks have been lost in the wilderness. A life like that I have been leading soon takes the softness from a girl's cheeks. But, Lilian! O stranger! tell me of her! I long to hear of her--to see her. It is but six months, and yet I think it six years, since I saw her. Oh! how I long to throw my arms around her! to twine her beautiful golden-hair around my fingers, to gaze into her blue innocent eyes!" My heart echoed the longings. "Sweet little Lilian! Ah--little--perhaps not, sir? She will be grown by this? A woman like myself?" "Almost a woman." "Tell me, sir--did she speak of me? Oh, tell me--what said she of her sister Marian?" The question was put in a tone that betrayed anxiety. I did not leave her to the torture of suspense; but hastily repeated the affectionate expressions which Lilian had uttered in her behalf. "Good kind Lil! I know she loves me as I love her--we had no other companions--none I may say for years, only father himself. And father-- is he well?" There was a certain reservation in the tone of this interrogatory, that contrasted strangely with that used when speaking of her sister. I well knew why. "Yes," I replied, "your father was also in good health when I saw him." There was a pause that promised embarrassment--a short interval of silence. A question occurred to me that ended it. "Is there no one else about whom you would desire to hear?"