The street seems empty; he took my heart away with him--but he does not know it." "Is that all ?" asked the old man.
"All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was not more to tell.
"My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning.

You are now between your blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of exquisite sensibility.

What has happened to you, my child, is love," said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,--"love in its holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it.

I have studied women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before love conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of sympathies explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an instant.

To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the charming woman whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her forever, solely and faithfully, without knowing whether our characters or persons suited each other.