His Sombre Rivals

little attention. Among those that sought her favor was Warren Hilland, and in accordance with his nature he had been rather precipitate. He was ardent, impulsive, and, indulged from earliest

efore the young girl suspected the existence of his passion, he declared it. She refused him, but he would take no refusal. Having won from her the admission that he had no favore

with hers that she responded in somewhat the same spirit, and said, half laughingly

, clear waters of her soul; but now she became an enigma to herself as she slowly grew conscious of her own heart and the law of her woman's nature to love and give herself to another. But she had too much of the doughty old major's fire and sp

ing to her old life, however, and fearing to embark on this unknown sea of new experiences, she hesitated, and would not commit herself until the force that impelled was greater than that which restrained. He at last had the tact to understand her and to recognize that he had spoken to a girl, indeed almost a child, and that he must wait for the woman to develop. Hopeful, almost confident, fo

y and sensibly, so nearly as a friend might address a friend, that she felt there could be no harm in a correspondence of this character. During the winter season their letters had grown more frequent, and he with consummate skill had gradually tinged his words with a warmer hue

o him that he did gather hope daily. Her letters were not nearly so frequent as his, but when they did come he fairly gloated over them. They were so fresh, crisp and inspiring that they reminded him of the seaside breezes that had quickened his pulses with health and pleasure during the past summer. She wrote in an easy, gossiping style of the books she was reading; of the good things in the art and literary journals, and of such questions of the day as would naturally interest her, and he so gratefully assured her that by this course she kept him within the pale of civilization, that she was induced to write oftener. In her eff

ent interest in his mining pursuits and the wild region of his so

ld he again endanger his hopes by rashness. He ventured, however, to send the copy of Emerson with the quotation already given strongly underscored. Since she made no allusion to this in her subsequent letter, he again grew more wary, but as spring advanced the tide of feeling became too strong to

source. Her joyousness had seemed to him a characteristic trait, and so it was, but he could not k

om waning friendship, but rather because their mutual interests had drifted apart. Their relations were too firmly established to need the aid of correspondence, and each knew that when

e one who so fully satisfied the cravings of his nature and coolly consider the pros and cons. He was

was true of her manner, for, looking upon him as Hilland's best friend, she gave him a genuine regard, but it wa

t she did not. She had no disposition to fall in love with every interesting man she met, and it seemed equally absurd to credit the gentlemen of her acquaintance with any such tendency. Her manner, therefore, toward the other sex was characterized by a frank, pleasant friendliness which could be mistaken for coquetry by only the most obtu

any power to win her love, she, by something in her manner or tone, will unconsciously reveal the truth to me. Then I will not be slow to

e was a soldier's daughter, and could best be won by Hilland's soldier-like wooing. Not that she could have been won any more readily by direct and impetuous advances had not her heart been touched, but the pro

of a woman lovely in herself, and, as he fully believed, peculiarly adapted to satisfy every requirement of his nature. A man w