your own; I said I would-I warned you that I would. Give me that rosebud in your hand, dear Rose, and say I may." Rose turned away her beautiful head; the hand that clasped the rosebud fell by her side, but gently yielded up its treasure.

CHAPTER XX.

"There's a double sweetness in double rhymes,
And a double at whist and a double 'Times'
In profit are certainly double.

By doubling, the hare contrives to escape;
And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape
And a double-reefed topsail in trouble.
But double wisdom and pleasure and sense,
Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence
Through whatever the list discovers,

They are all in the double blessedness summed
Of what was formerly double-drummed,

The marriage of two true lovers."

-HOOD.

THE sun passed away from over the great elm-tree under which we sat-passed away and far down on his westward journey-and still we did not move, or mark the flight of time. These moments that come but once a life-moments in hours, and hours in moments are isolated by emotion from

the rest of existence. In them, and in them alone, are the two consenting souls cut off from all else besides. For them time stands still, the past and the future are annihilated, memories and hopes and fears are dead, so intense, so exquisite this concentration on the present.

Poor Mary! Poor Adolphus! What were their waitings, their anxieties, their joys to us? All forgotten. That engrossing solicitude for them, what had become of it, then ? Was it only a veil that had taken the shape of the covered statue-cast aside, forgotten, and neglected when the hour had come and the revelation had been made? It looked too like it. Hours had passed, and I am sure the pair of whom we had made such a tragedy had never crossed the thoughts of either.

"Upon my life, now, it's true, my little darling-never slept a wink-couldn't, you know-hated everything-hated everybody

-hated myself-like poison-looked at my pistols now and then-thought I'd shoot myself, you know-didn't though-because I thought, while there's life there's hopesomething's safe to turn up, and I'll marry my little angel after all."

These were the first sounds from the outer

world that broke upon our reverie.

started up.

"What is that?" cried Rose.

We

"Hush! look," I said, "we are forestalled;" for there, on the other side of a tall row of shrubs behind our resting-place, slowly passing down the walk, were Burridge and Mary. His arm was round her waist, and her bright sunny face was looking up into his with an expression of ineffable content.

"We must have been here for hours," I said, "although it seems but a moment. We had forgotten all about our poor friends. What a shame! but all's well that ends

well, and I daresay they will easily forgive us."

"He is not a bit like you," said Rose; "and I shall quarrel with any one who says he is. His voice is so slow and drawling, too. I don't think I am going to be very fond of him, do you know. I wonder how he found his way in."

"He has been giving you a silent serenade every night for the last month-a song without words-without an air either, by the by; so he knew his way as well as I do."

"Oh the horrid prying creature!"

"Yet I would have done the same in his place; and when you found it out, you would have forgiven me, would you not?"

"Perhaps."

At this moment (both her hands were in mine, and—well, never mind) I was aware of a female figure that looked for a moment through the bushes, gave a slight scream, and vanished.