n."

"I suppose that is so with all of us," said Clarissa.

"Just so, though I don't know that any of us have ever been so
absurdly foolish as I have,--throwing away what was of the greatest
value in the world for the sake of something that seemed to be
precious, just for a moment." It was very difficult, and he already
began to feel that the nature of the girl was altered towards him.
She had suddenly become hard, undemonstrative, and almost unkind.
Hitherto he had always regarded her, without much conscious thought
about it, as a soft, sweet, pleasant thing, that might at any moment
be his for the asking. And Mary Bonner had told him that he ought to
ask. Now he was willing to beseech her pardon, to be in very truth
her lover, and to share with her all his prosperity. But she would
give him no assistance in his difficulty. He was determined that she
should speak, and, trusting to Mrs. Brownlow's absence, he sat still,
waiting for her.

"I hope you have thrown away nothing that you ought to keep," she
said at last. "It seems to me that you have got everything."

"No,--not as yet everything. I do not know whether I shall ever get
that which I desire the most." Of course she understood him now;
but she sat hard, and fixed, and stern,--so absolutely unlike the
Clarissa whom he had known since they were hardly more than children
together! "You know what I mean, Clarissa."

"No;--I do not," she said.

"I fear you mean that you cannot forgive me."

"I have nothing to forgive."

"Oh yes, you have; whether you will ever forgive me I cannot say. But
there is much to forgive;--very much. Your cousin Mary for a short
moment ran away with us all."

"She is welcome,--for me."

"What do you mean, Clarissa?"

"Just what I say. She is welcome for me. She has taken nothing
that I prize. Indeed I do not think she has condescended to take
anything,--anything of the sort you mean. Mary and I love each other
dearly. There is no danger of our quarrelling."

"Come, Clary," he got up as he spoke, and stood over her, close to
her shoulder, "you understand well enough what I mean. We have known
each other so long, and I think we have loved each other so well,
that you ought to say that you will forgive me. I have been foolish.
I have been wrong. I have been false, if you will. Cannot you forgive
me?"

Not for a moment was there a look of forgiveness in her eye, or a
sign of pardon in the lines of her face. But in her heart the