don't know myself,—I don't know you: but rise; when you do so, I feel troubled and disturbed.'

"I obeyed: it would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly: she trusted, and clung to me again.

"'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my present uncertain unsettled state.'

"'Oh, yes; you are happy!' she cried, hastily: 'you don't know how happy you are!—any change will be for the worse!'

"'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer: you are too generous to require it.'

"'Be reasonable, Louis,—be patient! I like you because you are patient.'

"'Like me no longer, then,—love me instead: fix our marriage-day. Think of it to-night, and decide.'

"She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my arms—and I lost her."