“Pardon me, Miss Adele”, said John, in a voice that betrayed his emotion, “but shall you miss us at all?  Shall you regret our absence?”

Again Adele’s heart bounded quickly.  She felt irritated and ashamed of its tumult.

By another strong effort, she answered simply, “Certainly, Mr. Lansdowne, we shall all miss you.  You have greatly enlivened our narrow family circle.  We shall be very sorry to lose you”.

How indifferent she is, thought John.  She does not dream of my love.

“Miss Adele”, he exclaimed passionately, “it will be the greatest calamity of my life to leave you”.

For a moment, the young girl was silent.  His voice both thrilled and fascinated her.  Partly proud, partly shy, like the bird who shuns the snare set for it, only fluttering its wings over the spot for an instant, and then flying to a greater distance, Adele bestirred her powers and resolved not to suffer herself to be drawn into the meshes.  She felt a new, strange influence creeping over her, to which she was half afraid, half too haughty to yield without a struggle.

“Mr. Lansdowne, I am happy yo learn you place some value on our friendship, as we do on yours.  But surely, your own home, such as you have described it to me, must be the most attractive spot on earth to you”.

“Is it possible”, said Mr. Lansdowne vehemently, taking her hand and holding it fast in his, “that you cannot understand me,—­that you do not know that I love you infinitely more than father, or mother, or any human creature?”

Surprised at the abruptness of this outburst, bewildered and distressed by her own conflicting emotions, Adele knew not what to say, and wished only to fly away into solitude that she might collect her scattered powers.

“Mr. Lansdowne, I am not prepared for this.  Let me go.  I must leave you”, she exclaimed.

Suddenly drawing her hand from his, she fled to her own room, locked the door and burst into a passionate flood of tears.  Poor child!  Her lover with his unpractised hand, had opened a new chapter in her life, too precipitately.  She was not prepared for its revelations, and the shock had shaken her a little too rudely.

John remained sitting, white and dumb, as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon him.

“Gone! gone!” he exclaimed at length, “she does not love me!  And, fool that I was, I have frightened her from me forever!”

He bowed his head upon the table and uttered a groan of despair.

Mr. Lansdowne returned to the solitude of his own room, sufficiently miserable.  He feared he had offended Adele past healing.  Looking over the events of the week, he thought he could perceive that she had been teased by his attentions, and that she wished to indicate this by the coolness of her manner and words to him, during their recent interview.  And he had recklessly, though unwittingly, put the climax to her annoyance by this abrupt disclosure of his love.  He berated himself unmercifully for his folly.  For a full hour, he believed that his blundering impetuosity had cost him the loss of Adele forever.