claimants, and the one to finally take possession is often enough one who
has no title from love at all.

Henry had been hit hard, but there was a dogged persistence in his
disposition that would not allow him to give up till he had tested his
fortune to the uttermost. His love was quite unmixed with vanity, for
Madeline had never given him any real reason to think that she loved him,
and, therefore, the risk of an additional snub or two counted for nothing
to deter him. The very next day he left the shop in the afternoon and
called on her. Her rather constrained and guarded manner was as if she
thought he had come to call her to account, and was prepared for him. He,
on the contrary, tried to look as affable and well satisfied as if he
were the most prosperous of lovers. When he asked her if she would go out
driving with him that afternoon, she was evidently taken quite off her
guard. For recrimination she was prepared, but not for this smiling
proposal. But she recovered herself in an instant, and said--

"I'm really very much obliged. It is very considerate of you, but my
mother is not very well this afternoon, and I feel that I ought not to
leave her." Smothering a sick feeling of discouragement, he said, as
cheerfully as possible--

"I'm very sorry indeed. Is your mother seriously sick?"

"Oh no, thank you. I presume she will be quite well by morning."

"Won't you, perhaps, go to-morrow afternoon, if she is better? The river
road which you admire so much is in all its midsummer glory."

"Thank you. Really; you are quite too good, but I think riding is rather