hers. He loved her purely and in truth, and there was not a sentence
that did not tell her this, by inference, if not directly. He
trusted her--and this, too, he told her, more as a husband might the
wife of years than a lover of her he had won so lately. Their hopes
were the same and their lives, and she dwelt longest upon the
sketched plans for the future of these. It brought him closer to her
than anything else--put her secret and reluctant imaginations of
evil, and Rosa's daring insinuations, out of sight and recollection.
She read slowly, and with frequent pauses, that she might take in
the exquisite flavor of this and that phrase of endearment; set
before herself in beauty and distinctness the scenes he portrayed as
the adornment of the prospect which was theirs.

The second and yet more deliberate perusal over, she folded the
sheet with lingering touches to every corner, thrust it into the
envelope, and drew it forth again to peep once more at the
signature--"Forever and truly, your own Frederic;" pressed it to her
lips, then to her heart, and bestowed it securely in her writing-
desk, before she unclosed her brother's epistle.

With her finger upon the seal--a big drop of red wax, like a
petrified blood-gout, stamped with the Aylett coat-of-arms--she
leaned through the casement to watch for the flutter of Rosa's white
dress among the vari-colored maples shading the lawn--sang a clear,
sweet second to the song that ascended to her eyrie:

"Why weep ye by the tide, ladye?
Why weep ye by the tide?
I'll wed ye to my youngest son,
And ye shall be his bride.