"Oh! what do I care for all this dross, whose daughter I may be, or my pride of ancestry? Clifford—oh, Clifford!—you shall never leave me. I will die if you do. I love you! Oh, will I have to say it?—yes, I love you better than all the world beside. No, no! you shall never leave me!" she said, with her white arms about his neck and her soft, warm cheek pressed close to his; and—and—well, I just skipped out there, leaving them alone with a scene that was growing too unutterably "rich for my blood," to use a Western phrase; but half an hour later, as they strolled back to the boat I overheard him say:—
"But why, my love, did you look so proud and cold in the hall when I came in at your house only the other night?"
"Proud and cold, indeed," she replied, with a gay laugh, as she shot a look of mingled love and amazement into his beaming eyes. "Now, that shows how well you can read a woman's heart, sir. Dear Clifford," she added, tearfully, "do you know, you dear blind boy, that at that very time I was wretched and miserable, and longed to kiss you and say that I had waited for years for just such an ideal as you are?"
"It is not too late now for that!" he cried rapturously, as they passed under the boughs of a drooping tree, then followed a sound so explosive that I beat a hasty retreat from such a danger-fraught vicinity, and never came near again until their boat touched shore. Maud came to them as they landed, and said:—
"Where have you been, truants? I have missed you for an hour."
"In paradise," replied Clifford, with such a look of happy abandon that Maud started joyfully; then Mora said, with a blush, as she clasped her arms about the form of delighted Maud:—
"Yes, I have coaxed him to stay forever; but I had to propose to the selfish being before he would promise at all."
Then Maud, seeing the tears of earnestness that began to start, kissed her new sister and Clifford very tenderly, saying, between her smiles and tears:—
"Oh, this is happiness indeed!" which sentiment seemed to be fully shared by the radiant couple whom she addressed.
Maud was not long in finding an excuse to leave the lovers to themselves; and when she had disappeared among the throng, they sauntered on to a secluded seat, under a vine-canopied tree, where the trailing bitter-sweet swept the closely-cropped grass with its graceful tendrils, loaded with a burden of orange and pink berries. Here, secure from intrusion, they could see the crowd of well-dressed people loitering about in detached groups, but were far enough removed from them to talk in that confidential strain peculiar to newly-mated young people, with no fear of interruption.