it, and all confessed that it was excellently done.

“And I am sure we are very much obliged to you,” said Susan after a pause, remembering that she had not yet thanked him.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said he, not quite liking the word “we.”  On the following day he returned from his work to Saratoga about noon.  This he had never done before, and therefore no one expected that he would be seen in the house before the evening.  On this occasion, however, he went straight thither, and as chance would have it, both the widow and her elder daughter were out.  Susan was there alone in charge of the house.

He walked in and opened the parlour door.  There she sat, with her feet on the fender, with her work unheeded on the table behind her, and the picture, Aaron’s drawing, lying on her knees.  She was gazing at it intently as he entered, thinking in her young heart that it possessed all the beauties which a picture could possess.

“Oh, Mr. Dunn,” she said, getting up and holding the telltale sketch behind the skirt of her dress.

“Miss Susan, I have come here to tell your mother that I must start for New York this afternoon and be there for six weeks, or perhaps longer.”

“Mother is out,” said she; “I’m so sorry.”

“Is she?” said Aaron.

“And Hetta too.  Dear me.  And you’ll be wanting dinner.  I’ll go and see about it.”

Aaron began to swear that he could not possibly eat any dinner.  He had dined once, and was going to dine again;—anything to keep her from going.

“But you must have something, Mr. Dunn,” and she walked towards the door.

But he put his back to it.  “Miss Susan,” said he, “I guess I’ve been here nearly two months.”

“Yes, sir, I believe you have,” she replied, shaking in her shoes, and not knowing which way to look.

“And I hope we have been good friends.”

“Yes, sir,” said Susan, almost beside herself as to what she was saying.

“I’m going away now, and it seems to be such a time before I’ll be back.”

“Will it, Sir?”

“Six weeks, Miss Susan!” and then he paused, looking into her eyes, to see what he could read there.  She leant against the table, pulling to pieces a morsel of half-ravelled muslin which she held in her hand; but her eyes were turned to the ground, and he could hardly see them.

“Miss Susan,” he continued, “I may as well speak out now as at another time.”  He too was looking towards the ground, and clearly did not know what to do with his hands.  “The truth is just this.  I—I love you dearly, with all my heart.  I never saw any one I ever thought so beautiful, so nice, and so good;—and what’s more, I never shall.  I’m not very good at this sort of thing, I know; but I couldn’t go away from Saratoga for six weeks and not tell you.”  And then he ceased.  He did not ask for any love in return.  His presumption had not got so far as that yet.  He merely declared his passion, leaning against the door, and there he stood twiddling his thumbs.

Susan had not the slightest conception of the way in which she ought to receive such a declaration.  She had never had a lover before; nor had she ever thought of Aaron absolutely as a lover, though something very like love for him had been crossing over her spirit.  Now, at this moment, she felt that he was the beau-idéal of manhood, though his boots were covered with the railway mud, and though his pantaloons were tucked up in rolls round his ankles.  He was a fine, well-grown, open-faced fellow, whose eye was bold and yet tender, whose brow was full and broad, and all his bearing manly.  Love him!  Of course she loved him.  Why else had her heart melted with pleasure when her mother said that that second picture was to be accepted?

But what was she to say?  Anything but the open truth; she well knew that.  The open truth would not do at all.  What would her mother say and Hetta if she were rashly to say that?  Hetta, she knew, would be dead against such a lover, and of her mother’s approbation she had hardly more hope.  Why they should disapprove of Aaron as a lover she had never asked herself.  There are many nice things that seem to be wrong only because they are so nice.  Maybe that Susan regarded a lover as one of them.  “Oh, Mr. Dunn, you shouldn’t.”  That in fact was all that she could say.

“Should not I?” said he.  “Well, perhaps not; but there’s the truth, and no harm ever comes of that.  Perhaps I’d better not ask you for an answer now, but I thought it better you should know it all.  And remember this—I only care for one thing now in the world, and that is for your love.”  And then he paused, thinking possibly that in spite of what he had said he might perhaps get some sort of an answer, some inkling of the state of her heart’s disposition towards him.

But Susan had at once resolved to take him at his word when he suggested that an immediate reply was not necessary.  To say that she loved him was of course impossible, and to say that she did not was equally so.  She determined therefore to close at once with the offer of silence.

When he ceased speaking there was a moment’s pause, during which he strove hard to read what might be written on her down-turned face.  But he was not good at such reading.  “Well, I guess I’ll go and get my things ready now,” he said, and then turned round to open the door.

“Mother will be in before you are gone, I suppose,” said Susan.

“I have only got twenty minutes,” said he, looking at his watch.  “But, Susan, tell her what I have said to you.  Goodbye.”  And he put out his hand.  He knew he should see her again, but this had been his plan to get her hand in his.

“Good-bye, Mr. Dunn,” and she gave him her hand.

He held it tight for a moment, so that she could not draw it away,—could not if she would.  “Will you tell your mother?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, quite in a whisper.  “I guess I’d better tell her.”  And then she gave a long sigh.  He pressed her hand again and got it up to his lips.

“Mr. Dunn, don’t,” she said.  But he did kiss it.  “God bless you, my own dearest, dearest girl!  I’ll just open the door as I come down.  Perhaps Mrs. Bell will be here.”  And then he rushed up stairs.

But Mrs. Bell did not come in.  She and Hetta were at a weekly service at Mr. Beckard’s meeting-house, and Mr. Beckard it seemed had much to say.  Susan, when left alone, sat down and tried to think.  But she could not think; she could only love.  She could use her mind only in recounting to herself the perfections of that demigod whose heavy steps were so audible overhead, as he walked to and fro collecting his things and putting them into his bag.

And then, just when he had finished, she bethought herself that he must be hungry.  She flew to the kitchen, but she was too late.  Before she could even reach at the loaf of bread he descended the stairs, with a clattering noise, and heard her voice as she spoke quickly to Kate O’Brien.

“Miss Susan,” he said, “don’t get anything for me, for I’m off.”

“Oh, Mr. Dunn, I am so sorry.  You’ll be so hungry on your journey,” and she came out to him in the passage.

“I shall want nothing on the journey, dearest, if you’ll say one kind word to me.”

Again her eyes went to the ground.  “What do you want me to say, Mr. Dunn?”

“Say, God bless you, Aaron.”

“God bless you, Aaron,” said she; and yet she was sure that she had not declared her love.  He however thought otherwise, and went up to New York with a happy heart.

Things happened in the next fortnight rather quickly.  Susan at once resolved to tell her mother, but she resolved also not to tell Hetta.  That afternoon she got her mother to herself in Mrs. Bell’s own room, and then she made a clean breast of it.

“And