pearls will repay you. To you alone could I leave these portraits; you

are worthy to keep them. But destroy them at last, so that they may

pass into no other hands." Eugenie was silent. "Ah, yes, say yes! You

consent?" he added with winning grace.

Hearing the very words she had just used to her cousin now addressed

to herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her first look of

loving womanhood,--a glance in which there is nearly as much of

coquetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand and kissed it.