The White Gauntlet

He raised his hand to his hat; took the glove from its place; and once more pressed it to his lips.

"Oh, that her hand were in it!" he enthusiastically exclaimed, yielding to a sweet fancy. "If it were her fingers I held thus to my lips--thus unresisting--then might I believe there was bliss upon earth!"

A footstep, falling upon his ear, interrupted the enraptured speech. It was light, betokening the proximity of a woman, or rather the presence of one: for, on turning, his eye rested upon a female figure, standing by the side of his horse.

The cavalier saw before him a comely face--and something more. He might have deemed it beautiful; but for that other still present to his intellectual eye, and altogether engrossing his thoughts.

It was a young girl who had