“Few, indeed,” was the response.

“Pardon me, for saying,” resumed the young man, “that to you I have been indebted for such added delights.  Rarely, indeed, have I been able to find, especially among your gentler sex, one who could rise with me into the refining, elevating, exquisite pleasures of the imagination.  But you have seemed fully to appreciate my sentiments, and fully to sympathize with them.”

To this Adelaide held down her head for a moment or two, the position causing the blood to deepen in her cheeks and forehead.  Then looking up with an expression of lofty poetic feeling she said—­

“And, until I met you, Mr. Fenwick, I must be frank in saying, that I have known no one, whose current of thought and feeling—­no one whose love of the beautiful in the ideal or natural—­has seemed so perfect a reflection of my own.”

To this followed another pause, longer and more thoughtful than the first.  It was at length broken by Fenwick, who said, in a voice that trembled perceptibly.

“I have an inward consciousness, that sprung into activity when the first low murmur of your voice fell upon my ear, that you were to me a kindred spirit.  Since that moment, this consciousness has grown daily more and more distinct, and now I feel impelled, by a movement which I cannot resist, to declare its existence.  First parden this freedom, Adelaide, and then say if you understand and appreciate what I have uttered in all frankness and sincerity?”

Not long did our young friend wait for an answer that made him happier than he had ever been in his life—­happy in the first thrilling consciousness of love deeply and fervently reciprocated.  To both of them, there was a degree of romance about this brief courtship that fully accorded with their views of love truly so called.  The ordinary cold matter-of-fact way of coming together, including a cautious and even at times a suspicious investigation of character, they despised as a mere mockery of the high, spontaneous confidence which those who are truly capable of loving, feel in each other—­a confidence which nothing can shake.  And thus did they pledge themselves without either having thought of the other’s moral qualities; or either of them having formed any distinct ideas in regard to the true nature of the marriage relation.

A few months sufficed to comsummate their union, when, in accordance with the gay young couple’s desire, old Mr. Fenwick furnished them out handsomely, at a pretty heavy expense, in an establishment of their own.  As Charles Fenwick had not, heretofore, shown any inclination to enter upon the practice of the profession he had chosen, his father gently urged upon him the necessity of now doing so.  But the idea of becoming a practical doctor, was one that Charles could not abide.  He had no objection to the title, for that sounded quite musical to his ear; but no farther than that did his fancy lead him.