equally active in the cause you approve and pray for?"

"I see my error, Mr. Woodburn," she replied, with an air of
self-reproach and of slightly-offended pride, which, however, gave way
to kindly tones, as she proceeded; "I have unintentionally helped you
to an argument, while I am constrained to decide that no argument, so
long as I stand in my present position, must prevail with me. Do not,
then, O, do not press me with questions like these. You know not the
extent of my perplexities, and I may not explain. Besides, are these
the times to engage in such affairs, when the next hour may lead to an
eternal separation, or place our respective destinies as wide as the
poles asunder?"

"But will you not allow me even to hope for the future?" still
persisted the lover.

"Why should I bid you tantalize yourself with hopes so likely to prove
futile, when nobler thoughts should engross you? Look, Mr. Woodburn,"
she said, pointing, with charming enthusiasm, towards the distant
summits of Manchester, then beginning to be dimly visible in the rays
of the rising moon, "cast your eyes northward! Beneath yon blue
mountains is gathered the council of your people. There also rolls the
recruiting drum of your brave Warner, who needs men like you; or if,
as you intimated, you are waiting to engage in a different corps,
which your council is expected to raise, would not your attendance
there be more worthily bestowed, than in adding to the perplexities of
one already so thickly surrounded with difficulties, and one who, to
your suit, cannot say yea, while she would be pained to say nay?"

"Cruel girl, but noble in your cruelty!" exclaimed Woodburn, with