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 moment longer; and then, remembering that he was still weak from his wound, she gave a low sigh and lay still for one glad moment in his arms.

And so the golden apple was responsible for all the trouble and all the joy that followed, as it was in the days of Eve and in the time of Arcadian Atalanta.

It did not prove a difficult matter for Robert to tell Margaret that he loved her, and to convince her that he must have her for his own. The arguments he used need not be set down here; they were somewhat indistinctly uttered, and yet were thoroughly understood. They were not new arguments, but have been frequently employed before,—usually with success, as every reader ought to know. For life is but a poor treadmill existence after all, a sort of dry-crust we all have to eat, and love may be prosaically compared to a kind of golden butter which transforms the hard morsel to the ambrosia of the Gods. It is a cheap luxury, the poorest may have it; and yet how many soi-disant world philosophers to-day go fasting, on the plea that it is too costly a thing to feed upon!

Robert found it a very easy thing to convince Margaret, as we have said, but it was a very different matter when it came to convincing Margaret's father, of the soundness of his