lost some of her frankness and girlish gayety, it is true, after
the dialogue with her father; but this I attributed to the reserve
and discretion that became the expanding reason and greater feeling of
propriety that adorn young womanhood. With me she was always ingenuous
and simple, and were I to live a thousand years the angelic serenity
of countenance with which she invariably listened to the theories of my
busy brain would not be erased from recollection.

We were talking of these things one morning quite alone. Anna heard me
when I was most sedate with manifest pleasure, and she smiled mournfully
when the thread of my argument was entangled by a vagary of the
imagination. I felt at my heart's core what a blessing such a mentor
would be, and how fortunate would be my lot could I succeed in securing
her for life. Still I did not, could not, summon courage to lay bare my
inmost thoughts, and to beg a boon that in these moments of transient
humility I feared I never should be worthy to possess.

"I have even thought of marrying," I continued--so occupied with my own
theories as not to weigh, with the accuracy that becomes the frankness
and superior advantages which man possesses over the gentler sex, the
full import of my words; "could I find one, Anna, as gentle, as good,
as beautiful, and as wise as yourself who would consent to be mine, I
should not wait a minute; but, unhappily, I fear this is not likely to
be my blessed lot. I am not the grandson of a baronet, and your father
expects to unite you with one who can at least show that the 'bloody
hand' has once been born on his shield; and, on the other side, my
father talks of nothing but millions." During the first part of this
speech the amiable girl looked kindly up at me, and with a seeming
desire to soothe me; but at its close her eyes dropped upon her work
and she remained silent. "Your father says that every man who has an
interest in the state should give it pledges"--here Anna smiled, but
so covertly that her sweet mouth scarce betrayed the impulse--"and that
none others can ever control it to advantage. I have thought of asking
my father to buy a borough and a baronetcy, for with the first, and the
influence that his money gives, he need not long wish for the last; but
I never open my lips on any matter of the sort that he does not answer
'Fol lol der rol, Jack, with your knighthoods, and social order, and
bishoprics, and boroughs--property is in danger!