"You are a ridiculous child!" Mabel bent to kiss the pleading lips,

then the great, melting eyes. "Who could be out of temper with you

for half a minute at a time? You did try my patience with your

nonsense, but since it WAS nonsense, I have forgotten it all, and

love you none the less for your prankish humor--you gypsy!"

"She calls my prophecies humbug--turns a deaf ear to my warnings!"

cried the incorrigible rattle, clasping her hands above her head and

rolling her eyes tragically. "I have a lively appreciation, at this

instant, of Cassandra's agonies when Troilus named her 'our mad

sister!'-'Woe! woe! woe!

Let us pay betimes

A moiety of that mass of moans to come!'"

Laughing anew at her frantic rush from the chamber, Mabel sat down

in the broad window-seat to read her love-letter.

Frederic was too manly in feeling and habit of speech to deal in

florid rhapsodies, but each line had its message from his heart to

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.

And ye shall be his bride, ladye,

Sae comely to be seen;

But aye she loot the tears down fa'

For lock o' Hazeldean."




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