going to ask for his own, before he went, and had no cause to fear what
would be thought by any one. A handkerchief! A man might fairly win
that, and carry it out of a very noble family, without having to blush
for himself.

I cannot say whether he inherited his feeling for rank from Mel, his
father, or that the Countess had succeeded in instilling it, but Evan
never took Republican ground in opposition to those who insulted him,
and never lashed his 'manhood' to assert itself, nor compared the
fineness of his instincts with the behaviour of titled gentlemen.
Rather he seemed to admit the distinction between his birth and that
of a gentleman, admitting it to his own soul, as it were, and struggled
simply as men struggle against a destiny. The news Miss Bonner had given
him sufficed to break a spell which could not have endured another week;
and Andrew, besides, had told him of Caroline's illness. He walked to
meet Rose, honestly intending to ask for his own, and wish her good-bye.

Rose saw him approach, and knew him in the distance. She was sitting on
a lower branch of the aspen, that shot out almost from the root, and
stretched over the intervolving rays of light on the tremulous water.
She could not move to meet him. She was not the Rose whom we have
hitherto known. Love may spring in the bosom of a young girl, like
Helper in the evening sky, a grey speck in a field of grey, and not be
seen or known, till surely as the circle advances the faint planet
gathers fire, and, coming nearer earth, dilates, and will and must be
seen and known. When Evan lay like a dead man on the ground, Rose turned
upon herself as the author of his death, and then she felt this presence
within her, and her heart all day had talked to her of it, and was
throbbing now, and would not be quieted. She could only lift her eyes
and give him her hand; she could not speak. She thought him cold, and he