He did not speak to her then, nor allow her to see him, but when, with her task finished, she left the room, his eyes followed her every movement and lingered lovingly on her beautiful face--for it was beautiful. He knew it now, as he also knew that he loved her, and always had done so from the moment that he first beheld her, a vision of the cliffs.
When, accompanied by faithful Aunty Nimmo, she left the house, he was waiting outside. She tried to hurry away as he approached her, but at the sound of his voice she stood still, trembling violently.
An hour later, in the modest apartment far downtown, which was the best her scanty earnings could afford, he had told his story. Mary Darrell knew that she was no longer a poor, struggling singer, but an heiress to wealth greater than she had ever coveted in her wildest dreams. But to this she gave hardly a thought, for something greater, finer, and more desirable than all the wealth of the world had come to her in that same brief space of time. She knew that she was loved by him whom she loved, for he had told her so. Even now he stood awaiting, with trembling eagerness, her answer to his plea.
Could she not love him a little bit in return? Would she not go back with him, as his wife, to the house that had been hers, and still awaited her, by the shore of the great lake?
"But I thought, Mr. Peveril--I mean, I heard that you were engaged?"
"So I was. I was engaged to Mrs. Owen, at whose house you sang this evening, and where I was so blessed as to find you. But she thought me unworthy and let me go. I know I am unworthy still; but, Mary dear, won't you give me one more chance? Won't you take me on trial?"
"Well, then, on trial," she answered, though in so low a tone that he barely caught the words.
In another instant he had folded her in his arms, for he knew that she was wholly his, and that in _this_ Copper Princess his interest was unshared.
THE LAST RECRUIT OF CLARE'S. Being Passages from the Memoirs of Anthony Dillon, Chevalier of St. Louis, and Late Colonel of Clare's Regiment in the Service of France. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.
This is a romance not of love, but of daring adventure, and so well worked as to be profoundly interesting.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._