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tured to bend his head below her bonnet; and saw, then, that the blush which had visited, flown, and re-visited her face, had fixed itself in the deepest tint upon her cheek. He gazed upon her in ecstatic silence, till, looking up, and, for the first time, suffering her eyes willingly to meet his, "No, Mr. Harleigh, no!" she softly repeated, "I am not so independent!" A smile then beamed over her features, so radiant, so embellishing, that Harleigh wondered he had ever thought her beautiful before, as she added, "Had I an hundred hearts,—ten thousand times you must have conquered them all!"
Rapture itself, now, is too cold a word,—or too common a one,—to give an adequate idea of the bliss of Harleigh. He took her no longer reluctant hand, and she felt upon it a burning tear as he pressed it to his lips; but his joy was unutterable. The change was so great, so sudden, and so exquisite, from all he most dreaded to all he most
