matic reading the night you left, which was very well. The following day there was the periodical lecture on transcendental geography, which, you know, I make a point of attending, but which was rather dull. We had a very nice ball the night before last; and as there was nothing particular going on yesterday, Phoebus and I got married."
"Married!" I exclaimed, while I felt almost as though I had received a deadly thrust of some sharp weapon through my heart; and had I been on land I feel sure I should have fallen to the ground;—"Married! O heavens!—is it possible?—alas! for my hopes of happiness!"
"What do you mean?" she inquired, with a look of the utmost concern.
"I mean," I stammered out, hardly conscious of what I was saying, "that I loved you better than my life—that it was the dearest wish of my heart to be able to call you my wife!"
"How can that be?" she said; "you have known me all these days and never asked me to marry you, far less told me that you loved me. I could not guess your wishes, as you never expressed them, though you had every opportunity."
"And would you," I stammered out in my agitation, "would you have been mine had I asked you?"
"I don't quite understand what you mean by being yours; but," she naively said, "had you asked me to marry you, I would undoubtedly have done so at once."
The extraordinary character of the conversation did not strike me at the time. As for Lily she seemed to see no impropriety in it.
"But now," I proceeded, "I am doomed to grief and
