"Why never, Julia?" cried the youth, giving way at once to his long-suppressed feelings—"why never? Try me, prove me! there is nothing I will not do to gain your love."
Oh! how seductive to a female ear is the first declaration of an attachment, especially when urged by youth and merit!—it assails her heart in the most vulnerable part, and if it be not fortified unusually well, seldom fails of success. Happily for Julia, the image of Antonio presented itself to save her from infidelity to her old attachment, and she replied—
"You are kind and good, Charles, and I esteem you highly—but ask no more, I beg of you."
"Why, if you grant me this, why forbid me to hope for more?" said the youth eagerly, and looking really handsome.
Julia hesitated a moment, and let her dark eyes fall before his ardent gaze, at a loss what to say—but the face of Apollo in the imperial uniform interposed to save her.
"I owe it to your candour, Mr. Weston, to own my weakness—" she said, and hesitated.
"Go on, Julia—my Julia," said Charles, in an unusually soft voice; "kill me at once, or bid me live!"
Again Julia paused, and again she looked on her companion with kinder eyes than usual—when she felt the picture which lay next her heart, and proceeded—
"Yes, Mr. Weston, this heart, this foolish, weak heart is no longer my own."
"How!" exclaimed Charles, in astonishment, "and have I then a rival, and a successful one too?"