"As best I can," answered Chartley. "I never premeditate, dear lady; for I always remark that those who go lightly and carelessly through the world go the farthest. The circumstances of the moment determine my conduct; and as I have no ties to bind me but those of honour and truth, no ambitious schemes to be frustrated or executed, no deeds done that I am ashamed of, so I have never any great store of fears for the future, nor much need of forming plans at any time for after action." "Happy are those," answered Iola, with a sigh, "who, as you say, have no ties to bind them." Her reply was a natural one, springing at once from what was passing in her own heart. Something had whispered that it would be better to tell her companion, that her own fate was linked to another, that she had been contracted in fact in infancy, by her relations, to a person of whom she knew nothing. The thought of informing him of her fate, however, led her to think of that fate itself; and thence came the sigh and the answer that she made. But as soon as it was uttered, she felt that it rendered more difficult, nay impossible, the task of telling the circumstances as she had meditated. The words she had just spoken, the sigh she had just breathed, expressed too clearly the regret that she really felt; but to explain to him the source of that regret, to show him the nature of the tie that oppressed her, would, she thought, be unwomanly and indecent. Her words, however, had not been unmarked; and Chartley, reading them wrongly, pressed her gaily for explanation. "Nay," he said, "you have no ties to regret. Your good aunt, the abbess, told me herself, that you are not destined for the life of the convent. If you do take the veil, it must be from some fancied resolution of your own heart, against which it is the duty of every knight and gentleman to war. Fie, fie! Let those who have tasted the world and found it bitter; let those to whom it has pleased Heaven to deny beauty, and grace, and mind, and kindly feeling; let those who have sorrows to mourn, or evil acts to repent, seek the shades of the convent; but do not bury there charms of person, and mind, and heart, such as yours, intended by Heaven to be the blessing and the hope and the comfort of another. I must not, I will not have it." He spoke so eagerly, so warmly, and his eyes looked so bright, that Iola felt glad the Arab was standing near piling fresh wood upon the fire. She knew not how to answer; but at length she said, "I am not destined for a convent; but there may be other ties as binding as the vow to the veil." "You are not married," exclaimed Chartley, starting; and then he added, with a laugh--a gladsome laugh, "No, no. You told me yourself that you had only seen one other young man twice in life besides myself."