you on the stairs, Miss Caroline: you're not to bid him good-bye" (stepping between her and Moore),—"you are to march."
"My shawl, Martin."
"I have it. I'll put it on for you when you are in the hall."
He made them part: he would suffer no Farewell but what could be expressed in looks: he half carried Caroline down the stairs. In the hall he wrapped her shawl round her, and—but that his mother's tread then creaked in the gallery, and but that a sentiment of diffidence—the proper, natural, therefore the noble impulse of his boy's heart, held him back, he would have claimed his reward—he would have said, "Now, Miss Caroline, for all this give me one kiss." But ere the words had passed his lips, she was across the snowy road, rather skimming than wading the drifts.
"She is my debtor, and I will be paid."
He flattered himself that it was opportunity, not audacity, which had failed him: he misjudged the quality of his own nature, and held it for something lower than it was.
