A quick smile dimpled Dora’s cheek, and passed.

“Not Karl, please, sir.”

“Dora, if you say ‘sir’ to me again, I’ll kiss you.”

“Please not, Mr. Brown,” said Dora demurely, “until you quite understand me.”

“Well then, let me quite understand you very quick; for I think I shall exact the penalty, even without further offence.”

“But I cannot promise,—­I cannot be what you said,” stammered Dora, half terrified, half confused.

“Nay, darling,—­I am going to always call you that, as expressive both of name and nature,—­it is you who do not quite understand either yourself or me.  I do not expect, or even wish, you to profess a love for me as ardent, open, and pronounced as my own:  that were to make you other than the modest and delicately reserved maiden I have loved so long.  All I ask you to feel is, that you can trust yourself to my guidance through life; that you can place your future in my hands, believing me capable of shaping it aright; that you can promise to tread with me the path I have selected, sure that it shall be my care to remove from it all thorns, all obstacles that mortal power may control, and that my arms shall bear you tenderly over the rough places I cannot make smooth for you.

“Dora, years ago I resolved that you should be my wife, God and you consenting.  I have waited until I thought you old enough to decide calmly and wisely; but, through these years of waiting, I have cherished a hope, almost a certainty, of success, that has struck deep roots among the very foundations of my life.  You will not tear it away!  Dora, you do not know me:  you cannot guess at the ardor or the power of a love I have never dared wholly to reveal even to myself.  Trust it, Dora:  it cannot but make you happy.  Give yourself to me, dear child; and I will account to God for the precious charge.”

Never man was more in earnest, never was wooing at once so fervent and so lofty in its tone; and so Dora felt it.  The temptation to yield, without further struggle, to the belief that Mr. Brown knew better what was good for her than she knew for herself, was very great; but, even while she hesitated, the inherent truthfulness of her nature rose up, and cried, “No, no! you shall not do such wrong to me who am the Right!” and turning, with an effort, to meet the keen eyes reading her face, she said, still timidly perhaps, but very calmly,—­

“I am but a simple girl, almost a child in some things, and you are a wise and good man, learned in books and in the way of the world; but I must judge for myself, and must believe my own heart sooner than you in such matters as these.  Years ago, as you say, I was your pupil, and you then nobly offered to adopt me as your child or sister.”

“As my future wife, Dora.  I meant it from the very first,” interposed the chaplain impetuously.

“I did not know that:  perhaps it makes a difference.  But, at any rate, I promised then, that if I went home with Capt.  Karl, and you wanted me afterward, I would come to you whenever you said so.”