mingled disappointment and admiration. "I will forbear to press my
suit for the present, but not forever. I will heed the lesson of
patriotism you have given me, but only to remember my fair prompter
with deeper devotion."

"Hark!" said the other, starting; "I hear my father's chiding voice in
the house inquiring for me. I must go. Adieu, Mr. Woodburn. With this
tendered hand of friendship and gratitude, adieu."

"If it must be so, my precious, my beautiful one, farewell to you, also."

Lips uttered no more, but the mute pause that followed, while eye met
eye, and hand lingered in hand, was not meaningless. The fond lover
was not permitted, however, to prolong the entrancing moment, which,
as the slightly-returned pressure of the small white hand, closely
imprisoned in his own, told him, had not been reluctantly vouchsafed
him; for, quickly arousing herself, the maiden broke from his clinging
grasp, and tripped silenty away, leaving him gazing after her
retreating form, and listening to the soft and decreasing sounds of
her light footsteps upon the grass, till the jar of the closing door,
to which she had directed her devious course, made him feel that he
was alone, and that the charm of the place was gone.

With a sigh, he turned from the spot, and soon gained the highway;
when, taking the direction in which his rival and foe had departed, he
walked musingly onward, heedless alike of the cool and balmly air of
the evening, or the quietly reposing beauties which the light of a
full moon, now beginning to peer over the eastern hills, was gradually
unfolding around him, and intent only on the dreamy images with which
love and his new-fledged hope seemed conspiring for a while to amuse