than other youths of the same age; was apt to believe that fair which was only specious, and that I might play, uninjured, with edged tools.  Nor had I seen you then, my treasure—­my snow-drop of purity!  Mabel! do you know how solemn a thing it is to be loved and trusted by a man, as I love and confide in you?  It terrifies me when I think of the absoluteness of my dependence upon your fidelity—­of how rich I am in having you—­how poor, wretched, and miserable I should be without you.  I shall not draw a free breath until you are mine beyond the chance of recall.”

“Nobody else wants me!” breathed Mabel in his ear, nestling within the arm that enfolded and held her tightly in the corner of the piazza shaded by the creeper.  “The danger of losing me is not imminent to-night, at all events,” she resumed, presently, with a touch of the sportiveness that lent her manner an airy charm in lighter talk than that which had engrossed her for the past hour.

The evening was warm and still to sultriness, and the moonlight, filtered into pensive pallor through a low-lying haze, yet sufficed to show how confidingly Imogene leaned upon her attendant in sauntering dowa the long main alley of the garden.  Rosa was at the piano in the parlor, singing to the enamored Alfred.  Mrs. Sutton had withdrawn to her own room to ruminate upon the astounding disclosure of her nephew’s engagement, while Winston bent over his study-table busy with the interrupted letter his aunt had seen in his portfolio.

“There is no one here who has the leisure or the disposition to contest your rights, you perceive,” said Mabel, running through a laughing summary of their companions’ occupations.

“Betrothals are epidemic in this household and neighborhood,” Winston was writing.  “There are no fewer than three pairs of turtles cooing down stairs as I pen this to you, my bird of paradise.  The case that next to mine—­to ours—­commands my interest is that of my sister.  I came home to learn that the little Mabel I used to hold on my knee had entered into an engagement—­conditional upon my sanction—­with that traditional tricky personage, a Philadelphia lawyer—­Mr. Frederic Chilton, at the door of whose manifold perfections, as set forth by my loquacious aunt, you may lay the blame of this delayed epistle.  I know nothing of this aspirant to the dignity of brotherhood with myself, saving the facts that he is tolerably good looking, claims to be the scion of an old Maryland family, and that self-conceit is apparently his predominant quality.”

“What is that?” asked Frederic, halting before the windows, of the drawing-room, as a wild, sorrowful strain, like the wail of a breaking heart, arose upon the waveless air.

Rosa was a vocalist of note in her circle, and she had never rendered anything with more effect than she did the song to which even the preoccupied strollers among the garden borders stayed their steps to listen.  Through the open casement Mabel and her lover could see the face of the musician, slightly uplifted toward the moonlight; her eyes, dark and dreamy, as under the cloud of many years of weary waiting and final hopelessness.  Her articulation was always pure, but the passionate emphasis of every word constrained the breathless attention of her audience to the close of the simple lay: