Lingering under the light of the sweet May moon, arm within arm, their voices hushed, their tread slow, went two individuals, whom few, looking upon them, could have failed to mistake for anything but lovers. Lovers they were, in heart, in mind, in thought: with as pure and passionate and ardent a love as ever was felt on this earth. And yet, no word, to tell of it, had ever been spoken between them.

It was one of those cases where love, all unpremeditated, had grown up, swiftly, surely, silently. Had either of them known that they were drifting into it, they might have had sufficient prudence to separate forthwith, before the danger grew into certainty. For he, the obscure and nearly portionless young soldier, had the sense to see that he would be regarded as no fit match for the daughter of Colonel and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve; both of high lineage and inordinately proud of it into the bargain; and she, Lucy Cleeve, knew that, for all her good descent, she was nearly portionless too, and that her future husband, whomsoever he might turn out to be, must possess a vast deal more of this world\'s goods than did Lieutenant Andinnian. Ay, and of family also. But, there it was: they had drifted into this mutual love unconsciously: each knew that it was for all time: and that, in comparison, "family" and "goods" were to them as nothing.

"And so Miss Blake is back, Lucy?"

The words, spoken by Mr. Andinnian, broke one of those long pauses of delicious silence, that in themselves seem like tastes of paradise. Lucy Cleeve\'s tones in answer were low and soft as his.

"She came to-day. I hardly knew her. Her hair is all put on the top of her head: and--and--"

Lucy stopped. "And is of another colour," she had been about to conclude. But it might not be quite good-natured to say it, even to one to whom she would willingly have given her whole heart\'s confidence. Reared in the highest of all high and true principles, and naturally gifted with them, Lucy had a peculiar dread of deceit: her dislike of it extended even to the changing of the colour of the hair. But she was also of that sweet and generous disposition that shrinks from speaking a slighting word of another. She resumed hastily and with a slight laugh.

"Theresa is in love with Rome; and especially with its cardinals. One of them was very civil to her, Karl."

"About this picnic to-morrow, Lucy. Are you to be allowed to go?"

"Yes, now Theresa\'s here. Mamma would not have liked to send me without some one from home: and the weather is scarcely hot enough for herself to venture. Do--you--go" she asked timidly.

"Yes."

There was silence again: each heart beating in unison. The prospect of a whole day together, spent amidst glens, and woods, and dales, was too much for utterance.

For the past twelve months, Lieutenant Andinnian\'s regiment had been quartered at Winchester. On his arrival, he had brought with him a letter of introduction to one of the clergy there--a good old man, whose rectory was on the outskirts of the town. The Rev. Mr. Blake and his wife took a great fancy to the young lieutenant, and made much of him. Living with them at that time was a relative, a Miss Blake. This lady was an orphan: she had a small fortune, somewhere between two and three hundred a year: and she stayed sometimes with the Blakes, sometimes with the Cleeves, to whom she and the Blakes were likewise related.

A novel writer has to tell secrets: not always pleasant ones. In this case, it must be disclosed that the one secret wish of Theresa Blake\'s life, to which her whole energies (in a lady-like way) were directed, was--to get married, and to marry well. If we could see into the hearts of some other young ladies, especially when they have left the bloom of youth behind, we might find them filled with the same ardent longing. Hitherto Miss Blake\'s hopes had not been realized. She was not foolish enough to marry downright unwisely: and nothing eligible had come in her way. Considering that she was so very sensible a young woman--for good common sense was what Miss Blake prided herself
upon--it was very simple of her to take up the notion she did--that the attractive young lieutenant\'s frequent visits to the rectory were made for her sake. She fell over head and ears in love with him: she thought that his attentions (ordinary attentions in truth, and paid to her as the only young lady of a house where the other inmates were aged) spoke plainly of his love for her. Of what are called "flirtations" Theresa Blake had had enough, and to spare: but of true love she had hitherto known nothing. She ignored the difference in their years--for there was a difference--and she waited for the time when the young officer should speak out: her income joined to his and his pay, would make what she thought they could live very comfortably upon. Love softens difficulties as does nothing else in life; before she knew Karl Andinnian, Miss Blake would have scorned the notion of taking any man who could not have offered her a settlement of a thousand pounds a year at least.

But now--what was Karl Andinnian\'s share in all this? Simply none.
He had no more notion that the young lady was in love with him than that old Mrs. Blake was. If Miss Blake did not see the years she had come to, he did; and would nearly as soon, so far as age went, have offered to marry his mother. To a young man of twenty-six, a woman of thirty-four looks quite old. And so, in this misapprehension--the one finding fresh food for her hopes day by day, the other at ease in his utter unconsciousness--the summer and autumn had passed. At the close of autumn Miss Blake departed with some friends for the Continent, more particularly to visit Paris and Rome. But that it was a
long-since-made engagement, and also that she had so wished to see those renowned places, she would not have torn herself away from the locality that contained Mr. Andinnian.

Shortly afterwards the Cleeves returned to Winchester, after a long absence. They resided without the town, just beyond Mr. Blake\'s rectory. Lucy Cleeve had been in the habit of spending nearly as much time at the rectory as at home: and it was from the never-tiring training of him and his good wife that Lucy had learnt to be the truly excellent girl she was. On the very day of her return, she and Karl Andinnian met: and--if it was not exactly love at first sight with them, it was something very like it; for each seemed drawn to the other by that powerful, sympathetic attraction that can no more be controlled than explained or accounted for. A few more meetings, and they loved for all time: and since then they had gone on living in a dream of happiness.

There they were, pacing together the rectory garden under the warm May moonlight. The rector had been called to a sick parishioner, and they had strolled out with him to the gate. Mrs. Blake, confined to her sofa, was unsuspicious as the day. Lucy, twenty \'years of age, was looked upon by her as a child still: and the old are apt to forget the sweet beguilements of their own long-past youth, and that the young of the present day can be drifting into the same.

"It is very pleasant; quite warm," spoke Mr. Andinnian. "Would you like another turn, Lucy?"

They both turned simultaneously without a word of assent from her, and paced side by side to the gate in a rapture of silence. Lucy quitted him to pluck a spray from the sweet-briar hedge; and then they turned again. The moon went behind a cloud.

"Take my arm, Lucy. It is getting quite dark."

She took it; the darkness affording the plea; and the night hid the blushes on her transparent cheeks. They were half-way down the walk, and Karl was bending his head to speak to her; his tones low, though their subject was nothing more than the projected party for the morrow; when some one who had approached the gate from the road, stood still there to look at them.

It was Miss Blake. She had that day returned from her continental excursion, and taken up her abode, as arranged, at Colonel Cleeve\'s. Whether at the rectory or at Colonel Cleeve\'s, Miss Blake paid at the rate of one hundred a year for the accommodation; and then, as she said, she was independent. It was a private arrangement, one that she insisted on. Her sojourn abroad had not tended to cool one whit of her love for Mr. Andinnian; the absence had rather augmented it. She had come home with all her pulses bounding and her heart glowing at the prospect of seeing him again.

But--she saw him with some one else. The moon was out again in all her silvery brightness, and Miss Blake had keen eyes. She saw one on his arm, to whom he seemed to be whispering, to whose face his own was bent; one younger and fairer than she--Lucy Cleeve. A certain possibility of what it might mean darted through her mind with a freezing horror that caused her to shiver. But only for a moment. She drove it away as absurd--and opened, the gate with a sharp click. They turned at the sound of her footsteps and loosed arms. Mr. Andinnian doffed his hat in salutation, and held out his hand.

"Miss Blake!"

"I came with old John to fetch you, Lucy, wishing to see dear Mrs. Blake," she carelessly said in explanation, letting her hand lie in Karl\'s, as they turned to the house. "And it is a lovely night."

Coming into the light of the sitting-room you could see what Miss Blake was like--and Lucy, also, for that matter. Miss Blake was tall, upright; and; if there was a fault in her exceedingly well-made figure, it was that it was too thin. Her features and complexion
were very good, her eyes were watchful and had a green tinge; and
the hair originally red, had been converted into a kind of auburn that had more than one shade of colour on it. Altogether, Miss Blake was nice-looking; and she invariably dressed well, in the height of any fashion that might prevail. What with her well-preserved face, her large quantity of youthful hair, and her natty attire, she had an idea that she looked years and years less than her real age; as in fact she did.

And Lucy? Lucy was a gentle girl with a soft, sweet face; a face of intellect, and goodness, and sensibility. Her refined features were of the highest type; her clear eyes were of a remarkably light brown, the long eyelashes and the hair somewhat darker. By the side of the upright and always self-possessed Miss Blake--I had almost written self-asserting--she looked a timid shrinking child. What with Miss Blake\'s natural height and the unnatural pyramid of hair on the top of her head, Lucy appeared short. But Lucy was not below the middle height of women.

"I wonder--I wonder how much he has seen of Lucy?" thought Miss Blake, beginning to watch and to listen, and to put in prompting questions here and there.

She contrived to gather that the lieutenant had been a tolerably frequent visitor at Colonel Cleeve\'s during the spring. She
observed--and Miss Blake\'s observance was worth having--that his good night to Lucy was spoken in a different tone from the one to herself: lower and softer.

"There cannot be anything between them! There cannot, surely, be!"

Nevertheless the very thought of it caused her face to grow cold as with a mortal sickness.

"I shall see to-morrow," she murmured. "They will be together at the picnic, and I shall see."

Miss Blake did see. Saw what, to her jealous eyes--ay, and to her cool ones; was proof positive. Lieutenant Andinnian and Miss Lucy Cleeve were lost in love the one for the other. In her conscientious desire to do her duty--and she did hope and believe that no other motive or passion prompted the step--Miss Blake, looking upon herself as a sort of guardian over Lucy\'s interests, disclosed her suspicions to Mrs. Cleeve. What would be a suitable match for herself, might be entirely unsuitable for Lucy.


Colonel Augustus and the Honourable Mrs. Cleeve were very excellent people, as people go: their one prominent characteristic--perhaps some would rather call it failing--being family pride. Colonel Cleeve could claim relationship, near or remote, with three lords and a Scotch duke: Mrs. Cleeve was a peer\'s daughter. Their only son was in India with his regiment: their only daughter, introduced and presented but the last year, was intended to make a good marriage, both as regards rank and wealth. They knew what a charming girl she was, and they believed she could not fail to be sought. One gentleman, indeed, had asked for her in London; that is, had solicited of the Colonel the permission to ask for her. He was a banker\'s son. Colonel Cleeve thanked him with courtesy, but said that his daughter must not marry beneath her own rank: he and her mother hoped she would be a peeress. It may therefore be judged what was the consternation caused, when Miss Blake dropped a hint of her observations.

The remark already made, as to Mrs. Blake\'s blind unsuspicion, held good in regard to Colonel Cleeve and his wife. They had likewise taken a fancy to the attractive young lieutenant and were never backward in welcoming him to their house. And yet they never glanced at Lucy\'s interests in the matter; they never supposed that she likewise could be awake to the same attractions; or that her attractions had charms for the lieutenant. How frequent these cases of blindness occur in the world, let the world answer. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve would as soon have suspected that Lucy was falling in love with the parish clerk. And why? Because the notion that any one, so much beneath them in family and position as Mr. Andinnian, should aspire to her, or that she could stoop to think of him, never would have entered into their exclusive imaginations, unless put there.

Mrs. Cleeve, dismayed, sick, frightened, but always mild and gentle, begged of Lucy to say that it was a cruel mistake; and that there was "nothing" between her and Mr. Andinnian. Lucy, amidst her blinding tears, answered that nothing whatever had been spoken between them. But she was too truthful, too honest, to deny the implication that there existed love: Colonel Cleeve sent for Mr. Andinnian.

The young man was just coming in from a full-dress parade when the note arrived. It was a peremptory one. He walked up at once, not staying to put off his regimentals. Colonel Cleeve, looking the thorough gentleman he was, and wearing his customary blue frock-coat with a white cambric frill at his breast, met him at the door of his library. He was short and slight, and had mild blue eyes. His white hair was cut nearly close, and his forehead and head were so fair that at first sight it gave him the appearance of being powdered. The servant closed the door upon them.

That Karl Andinnian was, as the phrase runs, "taken to" by the plain questioning of the Colonel cannot be denied. It was plunged into without preface. "Is it true that there is an attachment between you and my daughter? Is it true, sir, that you have been making love to her?"

For a short while Karl was silent. The Colonel saw his embarrassment. It was only the momentary embarrassment of surprise, and, perhaps, of vexation: but Karl, guileless and strictly honourable, never thought of not meeting the matter with perfect truth.

"That there does exist affection between me and your daughter, sir, I cannot deny," he replied with diffidence. "At least, I can answer for myself--that the truest and tenderest love man is, or, as I believe, can be, capable of I feel for her. As to making love to her, I have not done it consciously. But--we have been a great deal together; and I fear Miss Cleeve must have read my heart, as--as----"

"As what, Mr. Andinnian?" was the stern question.

"As I have read hers, I was going to presume to say," replied Karl, his voice and eyes alike drooping.

Colonel Cleeve felt confounded. He would have called this the very height of impudence, but the young man standing before him was so indisputably refined, so modest, and spoke as though he were grieved to the heart.

"And, pray, what could you have promised yourself by thus presuming to love my daughter?"

"I promised myself nothing. On my word of honour as a gentleman, sir, I have not been holding out any kind of hopes or promises to myself. I believe," added the young man, with the open candour so characteristic of him, "that I have been too happy in the present, in Miss Cleeve\'s daily society--for hardly a day passed that we did not see each
other--to cast so much as a thought to the future."

"Well, sir, what excuse have you to make for this behaviour? Do you see its folly?"

"I see it now. I see it for the first time, Colonel Cleeve.
For--I--suppose--you will not let me aspire to win her?"

The words were given with slow deprecation: as if he hardly dared to speak them.

"What do you think, yourself, about it?" sharply asked the Colonel. "Do you consider yourself a suitable match for Miss Cleeve? In any way? In any way, Mr. Andinnian?"

"I am afraid not, sir."

"You are afraid not! Good Heavens! Your family--pardon me for alluding to it, Mr. Andinnian, but there are moments in a lifetime, and this is one, when plain speaking becomes a necessity. Your family have but risen from the ranks, sir, as we soldiers say, and not much above the ranks either. Miss Cleeve is Miss Cleeve: my daughter, and a peer\'s grand-daughter."

"It is all true, sir."

"So much for that unsuitability. And then we come to means. What are yours, Mr. Andinnian?"

The young man lifted his head and his honest grey eyes to the
half-affrighted but generally calm face. He could but tell the truth at all times without equivocation.

"I fear you will consider my means even more ineligible than my family," he said. "I have my pay and two hundred pounds a year. At my mother\'s death another two hundred a year will come to me."

Colonel Cleeve drew down his lips. "And that is all--in the present and in the future?"

"All I can reckon upon with any certainty. When my brother shall succeed Sir Joseph Andinnian, he may do something more for me. My father suggested it in his last testamentary paper: and I think he will do it: I believe he will. But of this I cannot be certain; and in any case it may not be much."

Colonel Cleeve paused a moment. He wished the young man would not
be so straightforwardly candid, so transparently single-minded, putting himself, as it were, in all honour in his hands. It left the Colonel--the mildest man in the world by nature--less loophole to get into a proper passion. In the midst of it all, he could not help liking the young fellow.

"Mr. Andinnian, every word you say only makes the case worse. Two barriers, each in itself insurmountable, lie, by your own showing, between you and my daughter. The bare idea of making her your wife is an insult to her; were it carried into a fact--I condemn myself to speak of so impossible a thing unwillingly--it would blight her life and happiness for ever."

Karl\'s pale face grew red as his coat. "These are harsh words, Colonel Cleeve."

"They are true ones, sir: and justifiable. Lucy has been reared in the notions befitting her rank. She has been taught to expect that when she marries her home will be at least as well-appointed as the one she is taken from. My son is a great expense to me and my means are limited as compared with my position--I am plain with you, you see, Mr. Andinnian; you have been so with me--but still we live as our compeers live, and have things in accordance about us. But what could you offer Lucy?--allowing that in point of family you were entitled to mate with her. Why, a lodging in a barracks; a necessity to tramp with you after the regiment at home and abroad."

Karl stood silent, the pain of mortification on his closed lips. Colonel Cleeve put the case rather extremely; but it was near the truth, after all.

"And you would wish to bring this disgrace, this poverty, this blight on Lucy! If you----"

"No, sir, I would not," was the impulsive interruption. "What do you take me for? Lucy\'s happiness is a great deal dearer to me than my own."

"If you have one spark of honour, Mr. Andinnian--and until now I believed you had your full share of it--if you do care in ever so small a degree for my daughter\'s comfort and her true welfare; in short, if you are a man and a gentleman, you will aid me in striving to undo the harm that has been done."

"I will strive to do what is best to be done," replied Karl, knowing the fiat that must come, and feeling that his heart was breaking.

"Very well. Our acquaintance with you must close from this hour; and I must ask you to give me your word of honour never to attempt to hold future communication with my daughter in any way: never to meet her in society even, if it be possible for you to stay away and avoid it. In future you and Miss Cleeve are strangers."

There was a dead silence. Karl seemed to be looking at vacancy, over the Colonel\'s head.

"You do not speak, Mr. Andinnian."

He roused himself with a sort of shudder. "I believe I was lost in glancing at the blighted life mine will be, Colonel Cleeve." And the Colonels in spite of his self-interest, felt a kind of pity for the feelings that he saw were stung to the quick.

"Do you refuse to comply with my mandate?"

"No, sir. Putting the affair before me in the light you have put it, no alternative is left me. I see, too, that circumstanced as I am--and as she is--my dream of love has been nothing but madness. On my word of honour, Colonel Cleeve, could I have looked at the matter at first as I look at it now, and foreseen that we were destined to--to care for each other, I would have flown Miss Cleeve\'s presence."

"These regrets often come late in the day, Mr. Andinnian," was the rather sarcastic answer.

"They have in this case."

"Then I may rely on your honour?"

"You may indeed, sir. But that I see how right and reasonable your fiat is; how essential for Lucy\'s sake, I could hardly have complied with it; for to part with her will be rending myself from every joy of life. I give you my sacred word of honour that I will not henceforth attempt to hold communication of any kind with her: I will not meet her if I can avoid it. That I should live to say this calmly!" added Karl to himself.

"I expected no less from you, Mr. Andinnian," spoke the Colonel, stiffly but courteously. "I am bound to say that you have met this most lamentable affair in a proper spirit. I see I may rely upon you."

"You may rely upon me as you would rely upon yourself," said the
young officer earnestly. "Should the time ever come that my fortunes ascend--it seems next door to an impossibility now, but such things have been heard of--and Lucy be still free----"

"That could make no alteration: want of fortune is not the only bar," haughtily interrupted Colonel Cleeve. "The present is enough for us, Mr. Andinnian: let us leave the future."

"True. The present is greatly enough; and I beg your pardon, Colonel Cleeve. I will keep my word both in the spirit and the letter. And now, I would make one request to you, sir--that you will allow me to see Lucy for an instant before we finally part."

"That you may gain some foolish promise from her?--of waiting, or something of that kind!" was the angry rejoinder.

"I told you that you might rely upon me," replied Karl with sad emphasis. "Colonel Cleeve, don\'t you see what a bitter blow this is to me?" he burst forth, with an emotion he had not betrayed throughout the interview. "It may be bitter to Lucy also. Let us say a word of good-bye to each other for the last time."

Colonel Cleeve hardly knew what to do. He did not like to say No; he did not like to say Yes. That it was bitter to one, he saw; that it might be bitter to the other, he quite believed: and he had a soft place in his heart.

"I will trust you in this as I trust you in the other, Mr. Andinnian. It must be good-bye, only, you understand: and a brief one."

He quitted the room, and sent Lucy in. Almost better for them both that he had not done so--for these partings are nearly as cruel as death. To them both, this severing asunder for all time seemed worse than death. Lucy, looking quiet and simple in her muslin, stood shivering.

"I could not depart without begging you to forgive me, Lucy," Karl said, his tone less firm than usual with emotion and pain. "I ought to have exercised more thought; to have foreseen what must be the inevitable ending. Colonel Cleeve has my promise that I will never again seek you in any way: that from henceforth we shall be as strangers. Oh my darling!--I may surely call you so in this last hour!--this is painful I fear to you as to me."

She went quite close to him, her eyes cast up to his with a piteous mourning in their depths; eyes too sad for tears.

"They have told me the same, Karl. There is no hope at all for us. But I--I wish in my turn to say something to you. Karl"--and her voice sank to a whisper, and she put out her hand as if inviting him to take it--"I shall never forget you; I shall never care for you less than I do now."

He did not take her hand. He took her. Almost beside himself with the bitter pain, Karl Andinnian so far forgot himself as to clasp this young girl to his heart: as to rain down on her sweet face the sad kisses from his lips. But he remembered his promise to Colonel Cleeve, and said never a word of hope for the future.

"Forgive me, Lucy; this and all. Perhaps Colonel Cleeve would hardly grudge it to us when it is to be our last meeting on earth."

"In the years to come," she sobbed, her face lying under his wet tears, "when we shall be an old man and woman, they may let us meet again. Oh, Karl, yes! and we can talk together of that best world, Heaven, where there will be no separation. We shall be drawing near its gates then, looking out for it."

A slight tap at the door, and Miss Blake entered. She had come to summon Lucy. Seeing what she did see--the tears, the emotion, the intertwined hands, Miss Blake looked--looked very grim and stately.

"Lucy, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve have sent me to request you to go to them."

"God bless you, Lucy," he whispered. "God bless you, my best and dearest. Good-bye, for ever."

With what seemed a cool bow to Miss Blake and never a word, for in truth he was unequal to speaking it, Lieutenant Andinnian passed into the hall, caught up his hat and sword that he had left there, and let himself out, buckling on the latter. Lucy had her hands to her face, hiding it. Miss Blake waited.

"My dear Lucy, what am I to say?"

"Tell them that I wish to stay here alone for a few minutes. Tell them that Mr. Andinnian is gone."

Miss Blake, her hard, thin lips compressed with the cruellest pain woman can ever feel, took her way back again. Only herself knew, or ever would know, what this dreadful blow was to her--the finding that she had been mistaken in Karl Andinnian\'s love. For anguish such as this women have lost life. One small drop, taking from the bitterness, there was--to know that he and his true love had bidden each other adieu for ever.

"Perhaps--in a few weeks, or months to come--when he shall have recovered his folly--he and I may be friends again," she murmured. "Nay--who knows--may even become something warmer and dearer: his feeling for that child can only be a passing fancy. Something warmer and dearer," softly repeated Miss Blake, as she traversed the hall.

"Lucy will come to you presently, Mrs. Cleeve. There\'s no hurry now: Mr. Andinnian is gone."

"What is Lucy doing, Theresa?"

"Sobbing silently, I think: she scarcely spoke to me. Fancy her being so foolish!"

Mrs. Cleeve went at once to the library. She and her husband were as much alike as possible: mild, good, unemotional people who hated to inflict pain: with a great love for their daughter, and a very great sense of their own importance and position in the world, as regarded pride of birth.

"Oh, Lucy dear, it was obliged to be. You are reasonable, and must know it was. But from my very heart I am sorry for you: and I shall always take blame to myself for not having been more cautious than to allow you to become intimate with Mr. Andinnian. It seems to me as though I had been living with a veil before my eyes."

"It is over now: let it pass," was Lucy\'s faint answer.

"Yes, dear, it is over. All over for good. By this time twelvemonth, Lucy, I hope you will be happily married, and forget this painful episode in your life. Not, my child, that we shall like to part with you: only--it will be for your own welfare and happiness."

Lucy pressed her slender white fingers upon her brow, and looked at her mother. There was a puzzled, doubting expression in her eyes that spoke of bewilderment.

"Mamma," she said slowly, "I think perhaps I did not understand you. I have parted with Mr. Andinnian, as you and papa wished, and as--as I suppose it was right I should do; I shall never, I hope, do anything against your will. But--to try to make me marry will be quite a different thing. Were you and papa to tell me that you insisted on it, I could only resist: And I should resist to the end."

Mrs. Cleeve saw that she had not been wise. To allude to any such future contingency when Lucy was smarting under the immediate pain of separation, was a mistake. Sighing gently, she sat down and took her daughter\'s hand, stroking it fondly.

"Lucy, my dear, I will relate to you a little matter of my own early experience," she began in a hushed tone. " I once had one of the affairs of the heart, as they are called. The young man was just as attractive as Mr. Andinnian, and quite worthy. But circumstances were unfavourable, and we had to part. I thought that all worth living for in life was over. I said that I should never care for any one else, and never marry. Not so very long afterwards, Captain Cleeve presented himself. Before he said a word to me, Lucy, before I knew what he was thinking of, I had learnt to like and esteem him: and I became his wife."

"And did you love him?" questioned Lucy, in great surprise.

"Oh dear no. Not with the kind of love I had felt for another--the kind of love that I presume you are feeling for Mr. Andinnian. Such love never comes back to the heart a second time. But, Lucy, my married life has been perfectly successful and happy. Once that great passion is over, you see, the heart is at rest, calmness and reason have supervened. Rely upon it, my dear, your married life will be all the happier for this little experience connected with Mr. Andinnian."

Lucy said no more. She knew. And Mrs. Cleeve thought how dutiful her daughter was.

On the following day, a letter came to the Colonel from Karl. A
well-written and sensible letter; not of rebellion, but of acquiescence. While it deplored his fate in separating from Lucy; it bowed to the necessity that enforced it. A note was enclosed for Lucy: it was unsealed, in case the Colonel should wish, to read before giving it to her. The Colonel did so: he did not fear treason from Karl, but it was as well to be on the safe side and assure himself there was none. It contained only a few words, rather more coherent than Karl\'s emotion of the previous day had allowed him to speak: and it bade her adieu for ever. Colonel Cleeve sent both notes to his daughter, and then lost himself in a reverie: from which he was aroused by the entrance of his wife.

"Lucinda, that is really a most superior young man: high-principled, true-hearted. A pity but he had rank and money."

"Who is a superior young man?" asked Mrs. Cleeve, not having the clue.

"Lieutenant Andinnian."