sence, Madame, accompanied by two household. servants, established herself at Pine Grove. When Alfred returned from the drive, he proposed to stop and look at the dear old place, to which big companion joyfully assented. But nothing could exceed her astonishment at finding Madame Labassc there, ready to preside at a table spread with fruit and flowers. Her feelings overpowered her for a moment, when Alfred said, “Dear sister, you said you wished you could live here always; and this shall henceforth be your home.”
“You are too good!” she exclaimed, and was about to burst into tears. But lie arrested their course by saying, playfully, “ Come, Loo Loo, kiss my baud, and say, ‘Thank you, Sir, for buying me.’ Say it just as you did six years ago, you little witch! ”
Her swimming eyes smiled like sunshine through an April shower, and she went through the pantomime, which she had often before performed at his bidding. Madame stepped in with her little jest: “But, Sir, when do you think you shall send her to that pension?”
“Never mind,” he replied, abruptly; “Let us be happy!” And he moved toward the table to distribute the fruit.
It was an inspiring spring-day, and ended in the loveliest of evenings. The air was filled with the sweet breath of jessamines and orange-blossoms. Madame touched the piano, and, in quick obedience to the circling sound, Alfred and Loo Loo began to waltz. It was long before youth and happiness grew weary of the revolving maze. But when at last she complained of dizziness, he playfully whirled her out upon the piazza, and placed her on a lounge under the Cherokee rose her mother had trained, which was now a mass of blossoms. He seated himself in front of her, and they remained silent for some minutes, watching the vine-shadows play in the moonlight. As Loo Loo leaned on the balustrade, the clustering roses hung over her in festoons, and trailed on her white muslin drapery. Alfred was struck, as he had been many times before, with the unconscious grace of her attitude. In imagination, he recalled his first vision of her in early childhood, the singular circumstance that had united their destinies, and the thousand endearing experiences which day by day had strengthened the tie. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he gazed upon her with devouring earnestness. She was too beautiful, there in the moonlight, crowned with roses!
“Loo Loo, do you love me?” he exclaimed.
The vehemence of his tone startled her, as she sat there in a mood still and dreamy as the landscape.
She sprang up. and, putting her arm about his neck, answered, “Why, Alfred, you know your sister loves you.”
“Not as a brother, not as a brother, dear Loo Loo,” he said, impatiently, as he drew her closely to his breast. “Will you be my love? Will you be my wife?”
In the simplicity of her inexperience, and the confidence induced by long habits of familiar reliance upon him, she replied, “I will be anything you wish.”
No flower was ever more unconscious of a lover’s burning kisses than she was of the struggle in his breast.
His feelings had been purely compassionate in the beginning of their intercourse; his intentions had been purely kind afterward; but he had gone on blindly to the edge of a slippery precipice. Human nature should avoid such dangerous passes.
Reviewing that intoxicating evening in a calmer mood, he was dissatisfied with his conduct. In vain he said to himself that he had but followed a universal custom; that all his acquaintance would have laughed in his face, had he told them of the resolution so bravely kept during six years. The remembrance of his mother’s counsels came freshly to his mind; and the accusing voice of conscience said, She was a friendless orphan, whom misfortune ought to have rendered sacred. What to you is the
