Would it then be a condescension to love Madge? Dare you ask yourself
such a question? Do you not know--in spite of your worldliness--that the
man or the woman, who _condescends_ to love, never loves in earnest?

But again Madge is possessed of a purity, a delicacy, and a dignity that
lift her far above you,--that make you feel your weakness and your
unworthiness; and it is the deep and the mortifying sense of this
unworthiness that makes you bolster yourself upon your pride. You _know_
that you do yourself honor in loving such grace and goodness; you know
that you would be honored tenfold more than you deserve in being loved
by so much grace and goodness.

It scarce seems to you possible; it is a joy too great to be hoped for;
and in the doubt of its attainment your old, worldly vanity comes in,
and tells you to--beware; and to live on in the splendor of your
dissipation and in the lusts of your selfish habit. Yet still underneath
all there is a deep, low, heart-voice,--quickened from above,--which
assures you that you are capable of better things; that you are not
wholly lost; that a mine of unstarted tenderness still lies smouldering
in your soul.

And with this sense quickening your better nature, you venture the
wealth of your whole heart-life upon the hope that now blazes on your
path.

----You are seated at your desk, working with such zeal of labor as
your ambitious projects never could command. It is a letter to Margaret
Boyne that so tasks your love, and makes the veins upon your forehead
swell with the earnestness of the employ.

* * * * *

----"DEAR MADGE,--May I not call you thus, if only in memory of
our childish affections; and might I dare to hope that a riper
affection, which your character has awakened, may permit me to call you
thus always?

"If I have not ventured to speak, dear Madge, will you not believe that
the consciousness of my own ill-desert has tied my tongue; will you not
at least give me credit for a little remaining modesty of heart? You
know my life, and you know my character,--what a sad jumble of errors
and of misfortunes have belonged to each. You know the careless and the
vain purposes which have made me recreant to the better nature which
belonged to that sunny childhood, when we lived and grew up together.
And will you not believe me when I say, that your grace of character and
kindness of heart have drawn me back from the follies in which