apparition, stealing around this dwelling often in the dark and rain,
content with the ray of light your window threw upon the deserted
street. Now I see that I was a weak dunce, whose passion nature lent no
nerve of hers to convey even to your notice. Better for me that I had
hugged the debasing reality of my gold, and lost my eyes to everything
but its comfort!"

He looked towards the door. Vesta sat down in the fairy rocker, and
detained him.

"You have told me the feeling you think you had, Mr. Milburn. Poor as we
Custises are now, it will not do to be proud. How did you ever think
that feeling could be returned by me? My youth, my connections,
everything, would forbid me, without haughtiness, to see a suitor in
you. Then, you took no means to turn my attention towards you. You could
have been neighborly, had you desired. You did not even wear the
commonest emblems of a lover--"

She paused. Milburn said to himself:

"Ah! that accursed Hat."

The interruption ruffled his temper:

"I have had reasons, also proud, Miss Custis, to be consistent with my
perpetual self here. I will put the substantial merits of my case to
you, since I see that I am not likely to make myself otherwise
attractive. This house is already mine. The law will, in a few weeks,
put me in possession of your father's entire property. I shall change
outward circumstances with him in Princess Anne. He is too old to adopt
my sacrifices, and recover his situation; he may find some shifting
refuge with his sons and daughters, but, even if his spirit could brook
that dependence, it would be very unnecessary, when, by marrying his
creditor, you can retain everything he now has to make his family
respectable. I offer you his estate as your marriage portion!"

He took up from the table the notes her father had negotiated, and laid
them in her lap.

Vesta sat rocking slowly, and deeply agitated. She had in her mouth the
comfort and honor of her parents, which she could confer in a single
word. It was a responsibility so mighty that it made her tremble.

"Oh! what shall I say?" she thought. "It will be a sin to say 'Yes.' To
say 'No' would be a crime."

"You shall retain every feature of your home--your servants, your
mother, and her undiminished portion; your liberty in the fullest sense.
I will contribute to send your father to the legislature or to congress,
to sustain his pride, and keep him well occupied. The Furnace he may
appear to have so