Kitty, dumb with confusion and a sudden terror, made no effort to reply; and, after a moment, Mr. Brown led the way to a quiet conversation upon the young girl’s previous life, her early pursuits and affections, and finally to the passionate love and regret for her dead mother, in which he found the key to all she was and all she might be.  So employed, the psychological student even forgot his own affairs, and for half an hour hardly remembered Dora riding on beside Karl, who, like the cowardly bather, dallying first with one foot and then the other in the water’s edge, and losing all his courage before the final plunge, had talked with her of almost every thing beneath the sun, and worn out his own patience and hers, before she said, turning her clear eyes full upon him,—­

“Karl, be honest and straightforward.  It is kinder to us both.”

The young man heaved a sigh of relief.

“That’s it, Dora.  There isn’t another such girl in the world.  Don’t you know, in camp I used to say I relied upon you for protection, and for making a man of me instead of an idle boy?  O Dora! there’s nothing you couldn’t do with me.”

He spoke the last words in an imploring voice, and fixed his eyes upon her averted face.  Then, as she did not speak, he went on:—­

“It isn’t any thing I can offer you, Dora, except the chance of doing good:  I know that well enough.  What I am, you know; but what I might become to please you none of us can know.  And I do love you so, Dora!  I know it sounds bald and silly to say just those few words; but they mean so much to me! and I’ve meant it so long and so heartily!  No; don’t speak just yet:  I want to make you feel first, if I can, how dreadfully in earnest I am.  When I first saw you there at your old home, and you took care of me so tenderly, and looked at me, so pityingly out of your great brown eyes, my heart warmed to you; and then in camp, you know-O Dora Darling! you cannot say but you knew how dearly I grew to love you even then:  and when I found you were my own kin; and when you came to my own home, and my mother took you to her heart, and thanked God for having given her another daughter, and such a daughter; and when I saw your daily life among us, and saw how noble, and how unselfish, and how true, and brave, you were through all the sorrow, and the trials, and the loneliness, and the petty spite and insults, you had to endure; and then here, where you are like a wise and gracious queen among her subjects,—­O Dora! what is there in you that does not call forth my highest love, my truest reverence? and what better could life do for me than to grant me the privilege of worshipping and following you all my days, and making myself into just what sort of man would suit you best?”

And the true-hearted young fellow felt his words strike home to his own soul so earnestly that he could add to them nothing of the flood of tenderness and homage swelling there, but only looked at his cousin piteously; while she, with drooping head and averted eyes, rode on for a few moments in silence, and then said softly,—­