ey, and not you, would
suffer. For the rest I can bring you nothing, dear, but--thanks to the
good father who was born before me--such advantages as belong to wealth.
But so far as these go there is no pleasure you need deny yourself, and
if your sympathies are set on any good work for humanity there is no
opportunity you may not command. With this I can only offer you the love
and devotion of my whole heart and soul, which now wait in fear and pain
for your reply."

Glory read this letter with a certain quivering of the eyelids, but she
put it away without a qualm. Nevertheless, the letter was hard to reply
to, and she made many attempts without satisfying herself in the end.
There was a note of falsehood in all of them, and she felt troubled and
ashamed:

"When I remember how good you have been to me from the first, I could cry
to think of the answer I must give you. But I can't help it--oh, I can't,
I can't! Don't think me ungrateful, and don't suppose I am angry or in
any way hurt or offended, but to do what you desire is impossible--quite,
quite impossible. Oh, if you only knew what it is to deny myself the
future you offer me, to turn my back on the gladness with which life has
come to me, to strip all these roses from my hair, you would believe it
must be a far, far higher call than to worldly rank and greatness that I
am listening to at last. And it is. A woman may trifle with her heart,
while the one she loves is well and happy or great and prosperous, but
when he is down and the cruel world is trampling on him, there can be no
paltering with it any longer---Yes, I must go to _him_ if I go to
anybody. Besides, you can do without me and he can not. You have all the
world, and he has nothing but me. If you were a woman you would
understand all this, but you are loyal and brave and true, and when I
look at your letter and remember how often you have spoken up for a
fallen man my heart quivers and my eyes grow dim, and I know what it
means to be an English gentleman."

After writing this letter she went up to her bedroom and busied herself
about for an hour, making up parcels of her clothing and jewellery, and
labelling them with envelopes bearing names. The plainer costumes she
addressed to Aunt Anna, a fur-lined coat to Aunt Rachel, an opera cloak
to Rosa, and a quantity of underclothing to Liza. All her jewels, and
nearly all the silver trinkets from the dressing-table, were made up in a
parcel by thems