"Don't you see that, if I were to go, I
should be, alaiost of necessity, a great deal in
your company, and people might think— or,
to speak the simple truth, it might not be
well for me."

" O! why did you not tell me that before?
Of course, it was hard for you to say it. I
was a blockhead not to think of it myself.
But I am going away now, you know, Kitty,
so far, to another hemisphere; you will go
now? No one can make observations, no one
can misinterpret you now!"

" I will go if you wish it," she replied, in a
very low, heart-broken voice.

"There is something still which you hide
from me," said Frank, looking steadily at her,
" and it is something which makes you
unhappy. Even if I go to America, you do not
wish to go to London."

" How can I wish to go if you are not
there?" returned Catherine, almost angrily ;
" would not everything I saw remind me of
you and of your kindness long ago?"

" And yet you deny me the pleasure of
being there with you? I have heard that
women are riddles; and I've been puzzled
sometimes to understand my mother; but it's
new to me to find you incomprehensible and
inconsistent."

"Only let me stay at home," said Kitty,
entreatingly; " don't ask me to go to London
—don't show any interest about me; and,
when you come back, you will find me once
more your old friend and playfellow."

" No, Kate; do not let us deceive ourselves.
That can never be again. The happy time
when we were all in all to each other is gone;
and the cold friendship you offer me is but a
sorry substitute for the love you once bore
me. As for me, I cannot cease to love you;
but I cannot pretend to be satisfied with
being less than all to you. Time may possibly
modify my feelings, and I may grow
accustomed to the thought that I am nothing to
you; but we cannot become children again,
and the memory of those joyous days only
makes the sorrow of to-day the heavier."

" Do not say so!" said Kitty, in a tremulous
tone, "we may be as brother and
sister to each other."

" Brother and sister!" he replied, almost
fiercely. "Do not deceive yourself, as you
cannot deceive me, by that miserable delusion!
Brother and sister! Brother and sister we
never have been, and never can be. I love you,
Kitty, cruel as you are. You know that I
love you,— not with the temperate affection
born of habit and of instinct, which knits
together those of kindred blood; but I love
you with that passion which, if you do not
know, you have at least read of. You were
the dream of my boyhood, the hope of my
youth. All that sisters are or may be to
others, you are a thousand times to me. I do
not importune you to do impossibilities. I
love you too dearly to seek to influence you
by appeals to your compassion. Yes, and I
value myself too much for that; but do not
mock me by comparing that which is life of
my life to a feeling, however pure and sacred,
which may, without difficulty, be divided
among half-a-dozen. Some day. Kitty, you
may know what it is. God grant that when
you love you may never know the bitterness
of having your passion unrequited! "

"There are many, many, worthier your
affection than I! "

"If there are, I don't care for them. I love
you. I have loved you from the hour when I
first steadied your infant steps in your father's
orchard. I never called you sister. I never
felt the love of a brother towards you. The
love I then bore you was a faint foreshadowing
of that which now possesses me. I,
presumptuously, made sure of my happiness.
Till this winter, I never questioned that you
returned my love, absurd as it may appear to
you. Never, till this winter— never, fully,
till to-day— did I contemplate the possibility
of this agony."

" If I were but nearer to you in any one
thing," faltered Kitty.

" What then?" said Frank, impatiently;.
"it would not bring your heart nearer to me.
I should love you like a lover, and you would
look upon me as a brother."

" How little you know! " exclaimed Kate.
" Do you think I have had no struggles? Do
you think I have shed no tears? Do you
think it is easy to me to lose one turn of
your countenance— one tone of your voice!
O, you must not think that all, or even the
heaviest of the pain is on your side. You will
have much to comfort you— much to drive
me from your thoughts. I shall have only
the memory of the past, and prayer, to help
me."

"You are more and more inexplicable,
Kitty. If I could trust the seeming sense of
your words, I should almost hope that you
indeed love me, even as I would be loved.
Yet you make the confession in a voice so sad,
and with a look so hopeless, that I dare not
rejoice at it. What barrier is there between
us? What unknown hindrance which turns
this, which should be the sweetest moment of
our lives, into sorrow and bitterness? "

" You know! Oh, why compel me to
repeat what you know so well? I am a
simple country girl, without protection,
without accomplishments. You have talents and
rank which fit you to form an alliance with
any of the noblest families of the land; and
such an alliance Sir Edward and Lady Irwin
naturally expect you to form."

" And is this the only hindrance, Kitty? "

" Yes. Even for your sake I would not .
creep into your family by stealth; or enter it
only on sufferance. I will not deserve the
reproaches of those to whom I owe gratitude
and affection."

"By Heaven, Kitty, you wrong my father
and mother if you think that they would
value rank or fortune in comparison with