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Before the lovers, which it wanted no moment to make them, left the room, they had agreed that Annie must at once leave the house. Hector took her to her mother’s door, and when he returned he found that his father and mother had retired. But it may be well that I should tell a little more of what had passed between the lovers before they parted.

Annie’s first thought when they were left together was, “Alas! what will my mistress say? She must think the worst possible of me!”

“Oh, Hector!” she broke out, “whatever will your mother think of me?”

“No good, I’m afraid,” answered Hector honestly. “But that is hardly what we have to think of at this precise moment.”

“Take back what you said!” cried Annie; “I will promise you never to think of it again–at least, I will try never once to do so. It must have been all my fault–though I do not know how, and never dreamed it was coming. Perhaps I shall find out, when I think over it, where I was to blame.”

“I have no doubt you are capable of inventing a hundred reasons–after hearing your awful guilty confession to my father, you little innocent!” answered Hector.

And the ice thus broken, things went on a good deal better, and they came to talk freely.

“Of course,” said Hector, “I am not so silly or so wicked as to try to persuade you that my mother will open her arms to you. She knows neither you nor herself.”

“Will she be terribly angry?” said Annie, with a foreboding quaver in her voice.

“Rather, I am afraid,” allowed Hector.

“Then don’t you think we had better give it up at once?”

“Never forever!” cried Hector. “That is not what I fell in love with you for! I will not give you up even for Death himself! He is not the ruler of our world. No lover is worthy of the name who does not defy Death and all his works!”

“I am not afraid of him, Hector. I, too, am ready to defy him. But is it right to defy your mother?”

“It is, when she wants one to be false and dishonorable. For herself, I will try to honor her as much as she leaves possible to me. But my mother is not my parents.”

“Oh, please, Hector, don’t quibble. You would make me doubt you!”

“Well, we won’t argue about it. Let us wait to hear what your mother will say to it to-morrow, when I come to see you.”

“You really will come? How pleased my mother will be!”

“Why, what else should I do? I thought you were just talking of the honor we owe to our parents! Your mother is mine too.”

“I was thinking of yours then.”

“Well, I dare say I shall have a talk with my mother first, but what your mother will think is of far more consequence to me. I know only too well what my mother will say; but you must not take that too much to heart. She has always had some girl or other in her mind for me; but if a man has any rights, surely the strongest of all is the right to choose for himself the girl to marry–if she will let him.”

“Perhaps his mother would choose better.”

“Perhaps you do not know, Annie, that I am five-and-twenty years of age: if I have no right yet to judge for myself, pray when do you suppose I shall?”

“It’s not the right I’m thinking of, but the experience.”

“Ah, I see! You want me to fall in love with a score of women first, so that I may have a chance of choosing. Really, Annie, I had not thought you would count that a great advantage. For my part, I have never once been in love but with you, and I confess to a fancy that that might almost prove a recommendation to you. But I suppose you will at least allow it desirable that a man should love the girl he marries? If my preference for you be a mere boyish fancy, as probably my mother is at this moment trying to persuade my father, at what age do you suppose it will please God to give me the heart of a man? My mother is sure to prefer somebody not fit to stand in your dingiest cotton frock. Anybody but you for my wife is a thing unthinkable. God would never degrade me to any choice of my mother’s! He knows you for the very best woman I shall ever have the chance of marrying. Shall I tell you the sort of woman my mother would like me to marry? Oh, I know the sort! First, she must be tall and handsome, with red, fashionable hair, and cool, offhand manners. She must never look shy or put out, or as if she did not know what to say. On the contrary, she must know who’s who, and what’s what, and never wear a dowdy bonnet, but always a stunning hat. And she must have a father who can give her something handsome when she is married. That’s my mother’s girl for me. I can’t bear to look such a girl in the face! She makes me ashamed of myself and of her. The sort I want is one that grows prettier and prettier the more you love and trust her, and always looks best when she is busiest doing something for somebody. Yes, she has black hair, black as the night; and you see the whiteness of her face in the darkest night. And her eyes, they are blue, oh, as blue as bits of the very sky at midnight! and they shine and flash so–just like yours, and nobody else’s, my darling.”