officer were girls of ordinary understanding, but one of them had gotten too much poetry into her sweet head, and stood on the verge of a dizzy steep that overlooked a gulf, the name of which was Love.  At a party given by one of the foremost of the half-breed families, this girl met Alexander, the Scottish half-breed, whose person and manners have been just described.  There was something in the dreamy, far-away expression of the young Metis’ eyes, which stirred the blood in the veins of the romantic girl.  When they rested upon her, the soul of their owner seemed to yearn out to her.  The voiceless, tender, passionate appealing in the look she was unable to forget when she walked along the grassy lanes, or trod the flower-rimmed path of the prairie.

Coming along in the hush of the summer evening, when only the lovemaking of the grasshoppers could be heard among the flowers, Alexander met her, He spoke no word, but there was the same tender, eloquent appealing in his eyes.  He thought the young lady would not take it amiss of him, if he were to join her on her way over the fields; so he had taken the liberty.

There was a flutter at her heart, and a great passion-rose bloomed in each cheek.

No, she would not take it amiss.  The walk was so pleasant!  Indeed it was kind of him to join her.

The dusky lover spake few words; but he indolently left the path and gathered some sprays of wild flowers, and offered them to the girl.  His eyes had the same, wistful look, and his brown fingers trembled as he offered the bouquet.  Receiving them, and pinning them under her throat, she said in a low tone, while her voice trembled a little,

“When these fade, I shall press the petals in my book, and keep them always.”

“Do you consider the flowers I gave you worth preserving?” he asked, his low voice likewise trembling.

“I do.”

“I would give more than that,” he said, tenderly, “to your keeping.”

“Why,” she enquired, with an unsuccessful attempt at displaying wonder, “what is it that you would give to my keeping?”

“My heart,” the young man answered, his indolent eyes lighting up in the gloaming.  She said nothing, but hung her head.  The swarthy lover saw that she took no offence at his declaration.  Indeed he gathered from the quivering of her red, moist lips, and from the tenderness in her eye, that the avowal had more than pleased her.  She continued for a few seconds to look bashfully down at the path; and then she raised her eyes and looked at him.  No more encouragement was needed.

“My beloved,” he said, softly, and her head nestled upon his shoulder.  There in the shadow of a small colony of poplars, on the verge of the boundless plain, shining under the full, ripe moon, each plighted troth to the other, and gave and received burning kisses.  During the sweet, fast-fleeting hours on the calm plain, in her lover’s arms, with no witness but the yellow moon, she took no heed of the barriers that lay between a union with her beloved; nor had he any foreboding of obstacles, but heard and declared vows of love, supremely happy.