in the evening, he caught a glimpse of Fred and Helene dancing a
stately minuet together, and, lightly securing his horse at the door,
he entered the hall, just as Helene was protesting that she was too
tired to dance any longer. "Just once with me," he pleaded; and their
winged footsteps kept time to the tumultuous throbbing of the music.
The young girl suddenly grew faint. "Give me air," she cried, and at
the words Edward's strong arm swept her across the broad veranda, and
up on the waiting steed. Mounting behind her, like another young
Lochinvar, they dashed wildly off, but just in what direction could
not be told, for Helene, in mingled consternation, exhaustion, and
alarm, had fainted in earnest, and Edward, in the endeavour to hold
her limp, unconscious figure before him, had dropped the reins. The
steed, however, with a prudent indisposition for pastures new at that
hour of the night, turned into a stubble-field, and brought up at a
haystack. How, in the utter darkness, and with the wind blowing a
gale, the young man managed to restore his companion to consciousness
and bring her back to the house, were mysteries which Rose could never
attempt to penetrate with any degree of satisfaction. Helene, of
course, was superbly angry, and even this bare mention of the escapade
brought fire to her eyes and a loftier poise to the well-set head.
Strongly set about the heart of this young Huguenot were barriers of
pride, that could not be overleaped in a day--scarcely in a life-time.

"It is a bargain, then," said Edward, with a mischievous light in his
smile, "you will never forgive, and I shall never forget."

"I wish, if it isn't asking too much, that you would allow me to
forget. I particularly want to forget everything unpleasant on a
morning as beautiful as this," rejoined Helene.