Still she is silent.
"Brownie," he pleads, "I am not so fickle as you think me. I have fancied many pretty women, but only loved two—Grace Grey and yourself. My love for her is a thing of the past, and has to do with the past only—'echoes of harp-strings that broke long ago'—my love for you is a thing of the present, and will influence my whole future. You can make of me a nobler man than what I am. Willard is willing, your mother is willing, I have asked them both. Brownie, let us make of that Continental trip a wedding tour?"
Her shy eyes lifted, meeting in his a deeper love than she has ever expected to see in them for her.
"Let me see," he goes on, "Aunt Conway and I are going to Europe in June—that is time enough for you to get ready. Think of it, Brownie, I am to be gone months and months. Can you bear to let me go alone?"
"No, I cannot," she sobs, hiding her face against his shoulder; and Bruce takes her in his arms and kisses her with a genuine fondness, prizing her, after the fashion of most men, all the better because she was so hard to win.
[CHAPTER XX.]
WEDDING CARDS.
"Now she adores thee as one without spot,
Dreams not of sorrow to darken her lot,
Joyful, yet tearful, I yield her to thee;
Take her, the light of thy dwelling to be."