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WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM.
295

"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and distant: why?'

"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight.'

"'Do not—do not pass!—stay with me awhile: let us exchange a few quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone: such changes are cruel.'

"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough: indeed, there was softness in her whole deportment,—in her face, in her voice; but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.

"'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you called me your future husband, and treated me as such; now I am once more the tutor for you: I am addressed as Mr. Moore, and Sir; your lips have forgotten Louis.'

"'No, Louis, no: it is an easy, liquid name; not soon forgotten.'

"'Be cordial to Louis, then: approach him,—let him approach.'

"'I am cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow.

"'Your voice is very sweet, and very low,' I answered, quietly advancing: 'you seem subdued, but still startled.'

"'No,—quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me.

"'Of nothing but your votary.'

"I bent a knee to the flags at her feet.

"'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I