"I--I am frightened, Lord Arleigh."
"Nay, why should you fear? What is there to fear? It is true. The moment I saw you sitting here I knew that you were my ideal, found at last."
"But," she said, with the simple wonder of a child. "I am not like the portrait you sketched."
"You are unlike it only because you are a hundred times fairer," he replied; "that is why I inquired about you--why I asked so many questions. It was because you were to me a dream realized. So it came about that I heard your true history. Now will you be my friend?"
"If you still wish it, Lord Arleigh, yes; but, if you repent of having asked me, and should ever feel ashamed of our friendship, remember that I shall not reproach you for giving me up."
"Giving you up?" cried Lord Arleigh. "Ah, Madaline--let me call you Madaline, the name is so sweet--I shall never give you up! When a man has been for many years looking for some one to fill his highest and brightest dreams, he knows how to appreciate that some one when found."
"It seems all so strange," she said, musingly.
"Nay, why strange? You have read that sweetest and saddest of all love stories--'Romeo and Juliet?' Did Juliet think it strange that, so soon after seeing her, Romeo should be willing to give his life for her?"
"No, it did not seem strange to them," she replied, with a smile; "but it is different with us. This is the nineteenth century, and there are no Juliets."
"There are plenty of Romeos, though," he remarked, laughingly. "The sweetest dreams in my life are the briefest. Will you pluck one of those roses for me and give it to me, saying, 'I promise to be your friend?'"