“All right, Maria; I was only plucking one for you.  Won’t you put it in your dress?  Where are the others?”

“They have all gone.  Come in, it is so hot out there; and tell me what you think of Mrs. Bellamy.”

“I think that she is very handsome and very clever.  I wonder where Bellamy picked her up.”

“I don’t know; I wish he hadn’t picked her up at all.  I don’t like her, she says unpleasant things; and, though I have only seen her three times, she seems to know all about me and everybody else.  I am not very quick; but do you know just now I thought that she was insinuating that you were in love with Hilda; that’s not true, is it, Philip?  Don’t think me forward if I ask you if that is true, and if I say that, if it is, it is better that I should know it.  I sha’n’t be angry, Philip;” and the girl stood before him to await his answer, one hand pressed against her bosom to still the beating of her heart, whilst with the other she screened her blushing brow.

And Philip too stood face to face with her sweet self, with conscience, and with opportunity.  “Now,” whispered conscience, “is the time, before very much harm is done; now is the acceptable time to tell her all about it, and, whilst forbidding her love, to enlist her sympathy and friendship.  It will be wrong to encourage her affection; when you ardently love another woman, you cannot palter any more.”  “Now,” whispered opportunity, shouldering conscience aside, “is the time to secure her, her love, and her possessions, and to reward Hilda for her pride.  Do not sacrifice yourself to an infatuation; do not tell her about Hilda—­it would only breed jealousies; you can settle with her afterwards.  Take the goods the gods provide you.”

All this and more passed through his mind; and he had made his choice long before the rich blood that mantled in the lady’s cheek had sunk back to the true breast from whence it came.

Oh, instant of time born to colour all eternity to thine own hue, for this man thou hast come and gone!  Oh, fleeting moment, bearing desolation or healing on thy wings, how the angels, in whose charge lie the souls of men, must tremble and turn pale, as they mark thy flight through the circumstances of a man’s existence, and thence taking thy secrets with thee away to add thy fateful store to the records of his past!

He took her hand, the hand that was pressed upon her bosom.

“Maria,” he said, “you should not get such ideas into your head.  I admire Hilda very much, and that is all.  Why, dear, I have always looked upon myself as half engaged to you—­that is, so far as I am concerned; and I have only been waiting till circumstances would allow me to do so, to ask you if you think me worth marrying.”

For a while she made no reply, but only blushed the more; at last she looked up a little.

“You have made me very happy, Philip.”  That was all she said.