"We have very cold weather in Virginia sometimes," returned Mabel,

still scanning the sentinel gate-posts, and the pyramidal

arbor-vitae trees flanking them.

Her gaze was a mournful farewell, but she neglected none of the

amenities of hospitality. She was used to talking commonplaces.

"We feel it all the more, too, on account of the mildness of the

greater part of the winter," she subjoined.

"Allow me!" said the other, looping back the curtain she had until

now held in her hand. "Whereas our systems are braced by a more

uniform temperature to endure the severity of our frosts, and high,

keen blasts."

"I suppose so," assented Mabel, mechanically, and unconscious as

himself that meaning glances were stolen at them from the fireside

circle, while the hum and conversation was continuous and louder,

for the good-natured intent on the speakers' part to afford the

supposed lovers the chance of carrying on their dialogue unheard.

"But our houses are very comfortable--often very beautiful," Mr.

Dorrance persevered, keeping to the scent of his game, as a trained

pointer scours a stubble-field, narrowing his beat at every

circuit; "and the hearts of those who live in them are warm and

constant. It is not always true that "'The cold in clime are cold in blood;

Their love can scarce deserve the name.

"I have thought sometimes that that feeling is strongest and most

enduring, the demonstration of which is guarded and infrequent, as

the deepest portion of the channel is the most quiet."

If his philosophical and scientific talk were heavy and solid, his

poetry and metaphors were ponderous and labored. Yet Mabel listened

to him now, neither facing nor avoiding him, looking down at her

hands, laid, one above the other, upon the window-sill, the image of

maidenly and courteous attention.

Why should she affect diffidence, or seek to escape what she had

foreseen for weeks, and made no effort to ward off? She had come to

the conclusion in October that Herbert Dorrance would, when the

forms he considered indispensable to regular courtship had been gone

through with, ask her to marry him, and coolly taken her resolution

to accept him. This morning, on the reception of a handsome

Christmas gift from him, and discovering in his actions something

more pointed than his customary punctilious devoirs, and in his

didacticism the outermost of the closing circle of pursuit she had

furthermore concluded that his happy thought was to celebrate the

festal season by his betrothment. She was quite ready for the

declaration, which, she anticipated, would be pompous and formal.

She would have excused him from "doing" the poetical part of it;

but, since it was on the programme, it was not her province to

interfere.




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