“Are you going away to remain Mr. Blakely,” the question awoke him from his reverie, he turned to Martha and a sudden impulse prompted him to address her on the subject nearest his heart. “I would remain if I could induce one to share my name and home. Forgive me, Martha, if I anger you by speaking so hastily; will you forget the past and help me to forget it; will you let me make you my dear wife?” In saying will you forget the past, Mark Blakely alluded to his first marriage in his extreme sensitiveness on that point, he doubted whether Martha would object to succeed the dead Mrs. Blakely, he believed those hasty and ill-natured words reported to him as having been spoken by her, bore on that point alone. Martha on the contrary assumed that her forgetfulness was asked for his own behavior to her in so far that he had gone away and left her without a word of explanation. She grew quite pale with anger. Mark Blakely resumed; his manner earnest, his voice low and tender, “I have loved you Martha from the first day that I saw you at my mother’s, I dragged myself away from the place because I loved you, fearing that you might come to see my folly, it was worse than folly then, for I was not a free man. I have continued loving you more and more from that time to this. I went abroad this last time hoping to forget you; but I cannot do it, and my love has only become stronger. Forgive, I say, my urging it upon you in this moment of impulse.” Poor Martha was greatly excited, went abroad hoping to forget her, striving to forget her, it was worse and worse. She pushed his hand away. “Oh! Martha, can you not love me?” he exclaimed in agitation. “Will you not give me hopes that you will some time be my wife.” “No, I cannot love you; I will not give you hopes. I would rather marry any man in the world than you; you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Blakely!” Not a very dignified rejoinder, and Martha first with anger and then with love, burst into even less dignified tears, and left the room in a passion. Mark Blakely bit his lips in disgust. Mary entered unsuspicious; he turned from the window and smoothed his brow, gathering what equanimity he could as he proceeded to inquire after Mr. Taylor. About a month after this interview Martha Taylor walked out from the dining-room to enjoy the beauty of the spring evening, or to indulge her own thoughts as might be. She strayed to the edge of the grounds and there sat down on the garden bench, not to remain alone long. She was interrupted by the very man upon whom, if the disclosure must be made, her evening thoughts had centered. He was coming up with a quick step, seeing Martha he stopped to accost her, his heart beating, beating from the quick steps or from the sight of Martha, he best knew. Many a man’s heart has beaten at the sight of a less lovely vision. She wore white, set off with blue ribbons, and her golden hair glittered in the sunlight. She nearly screamed with surprise; she had