black woman had been her companion in all the kind offices of which
she had been the ministering angel to Elsie.

After it was all over, Helen was leaving with the rest, when Dudley
Venner begged her to stay a little, and he would send her back: it was
a long walk; besides, he wished to say some things to her, which he had
not had the opportunity of speaking. Of course Helen could not refuse
him; there must be many thoughts coming into his mind which he would
wish to share with her who had known his daughter so long and been with
her in her last days.

She returned into the great parlor with the wrought cornices and the
medallion-portraits on the ceiling.

"I am now alone in the world," Dudley Venner said.

Helen must have known that before he spoke. But the tone in which he
said it had so much meaning, that she could not find a word to answer
him with. They sat in silence, which the old tall clock counted out in
long seconds; but it was a silence which meant more than any words they
had ever spoken.

"Alone in the world! Helen, the freshness of my life is gone, and there
is little left of the few graces which in my younger days might have
fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to me,--kindly, if you can;
forgive me, at least. Half my life has been passed in constant fear and
anguish, without any near friend to share my trials. My task is done
now; my fears have ceased to prey upon me; the sharpness of early
sorrows has yielded something of its edge to time. You have bound me to
you by gratitude in the tender care you have taken of my poor child.
More than this. I must tell you all now, out of the depth of this
trouble through which I am passing. I have loved you from the moment
we first met; and if my life has anything left worth accepting, it is
yours. Will you take the offered gift?"

Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered.

"This is not for me,--not for me," she said. "I am but a poor faded
flower, not worth the gathering of such a one as you. No, no,--I have
been bred to humble toil all my days, and I could not be to you what
you ought to ask. I am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and
self-dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the world, such as you
were born to move in. Leave me to my obscure place and duties; I shall
at least have peace;--and you--you will surely find in due time some one
better fitted by Nature and training to make you happy."

"No, Miss Darley!" Dudley Venner said