It is usually not difficult for an individual to define the conditions of happiness. If I only had so and so, or if I only were so and so, and the thing is done. Each successive state, however, suggests one more happy, and each gratified wish leads to another desire more imperative. Miss Katharine Wilton, however, did not confine her conditions to units. There were in her case three requisites for happiness,—perfect happiness,—and could they have been satisfied, in all probability she would have come as near to the wished-for state as poor humanity on this earth ever does come to that beatific condition. She certainly thought so, and with characteristic boldness had not refrained from communicating her thoughts to her father.

The astonishing feature of the situation was that he was inclined to agree with her. There was nothing astonishing in itself in his agreement with her, for he usually did agree with her, but in that her conditions were really his own. For it is rare, blessedly so, that two people feel that they require the same thing to complete the joy of life, and when they parallel on three points 't is most remarkable. Even two lovers require each other—very different things, I am sure. Stop! I am not so sure about the third proviso with the colonel. I say the third, because Miss Wilton put it number three, though perhaps it was like a woman's postscript, which somehow suggests the paraphrase of a familiar bit of Scripture,—the last, not will be, but should be, first!

Here are the requisites. One: The flag floating gracefully from the peak of the spanker gaff above them, in the light air of the sunny afternoon, should be the stars and stripes, instead of the red cross of St. George! Two: The prow of the ship should be turned to the wooded shores of Virginia, and the Old Dominion should be her destination instead of the chalk cliffs of England! Three: that a certain handsome, fair, blue-eyed, gallant sailor, who answered to the name of John Seymour, should be by her side instead of another, even though that other were one who had once saved her life, and to whose care and kindness and forethought she was much indebted. Her present attendant was certainly a gentleman; and to an unprejudiced eye—which hers certainly was not—quite as handsome and distinguished and gallant as was his favored rival, and boasting one advantage over the other in that he bore a titled name—not such a desideratum among American girls at that time, however, as it was afterwards destined to become; and in a girl of the stamp of Miss Katharine Wilton, possibly no advantage at all.

But, could the heart of that fair damsel be known, all talk of advantage or disadvantage, or this or that compensating factor, was absolutely idle! She was not a girl who did things by halves; and the feeling which had prompted her to give herself to the young sailor, though of sudden origin, had grown and grown during the days of absence and confinement, till, in depth and intensity, it matched his own. She was not now so sure that, among the other objects of her adoration, he would have to take the second place; that, in case of division, her heart would lead her to think first of her country. Insensibly had his image supplanted every other, and with all the passionate devotion of her generous southern nature she loved him.

Lord Desborough had ample opportunity for ascertaining this fact. He had seen her risk her life for Seymour's own. He could never forget the glorious picture she made standing across the prostrate form of that young man, pistol in hand, keeping the mob at bay, never wavering, never faltering, clear-eyed, supreme. He would be almost willing to die to have her do the like for him. He could still hear the echo of that bitter cry,—"Seymour! Seymour!"—which rang through the house when they had dragged her away. These things were not pleasant reminiscences, but, like most other unpleasant memories, they would not down. In spite of all this, however, he had allowed himself—nay, his permission he vowed had not been asked—to fall violently in love with this little colonial maiden, and a country maiden at that! Not being psychologically inclined, he had never attempted to analyze her charm or to explain his sensations. Realizing the fact, and being young and therefore hopeful, he had not allowed himself to despair. Really, he had some claims upon her. Had he not interfered, she would have been murdered that night in the dining-room. He had earned the gratitude then and there of her father, and of herself as well; and he had earned more of it too when he had shot dead a certain brutal marauding blackguard by the name of Johnson, at the first convenient opportunity, having received incidentally, in return for his message of death, a bullet in his own breast to remind him that there are always two persons and two chances in a duel. A part of the debt of the Wiltons had been paid by the assiduous and solicitous care with which they—Katharine chiefly, of course—had nursed him through the long and dangerous illness consequent upon his wound. It was his interest which had prevented further ill treatment of them by the brutal and tyrannous Dunmore, and, had Katharine so elected, would have secured her freedom. She had, however, to Desborough's great delight............