"

"No, I won't commit myself in regard to your lovers. But, if they
were mine, I would soon let it be known where my preference lay."

"Then you won't assist me in coming to a decision? Surely I am
entitled to this act of friendship."

"If you put it upon that ground, Rose, I do not see how I can
refuse."

"I do put it upon that ground, Annette. And now I ask you, as a
friend, to give me your opinion of the two young men, James
Hambleton and Marcus Gray, who have seen such wonderful attractions
in my humble self as to become suitors for my hand at the same
time."

"Decidedly, then, Rose, I should prefer Marcus Gray."

"There is about him, certainly, Annette, much to attract a maiden's
eye and to captivate her heart but it has occurred to me that the
most glittering surface does not always indicate the purest gold
beneath. I remember once to have seen a massive chain, wrought from
pure ounces, placed beside another that was far inferior in quality,
but with a surface of ten times richer hue. Had I not been told the
difference, I would have chosen the latter as in every way more
valuable; but when it was explained that one bore the hue of genuine
gold, while the other had been coloured by a process known to
jewellers, I was struck with the lesson it taught."

"What lesson, Rose?"

"That the richest substance has not always the most glittering
exterior. That real worth, satisfied with the consciousness of
interior soundness of principle, assumes few imposing exterior
aspects and forms."

"And that rule you apply to these two young men?"

"By that rule I wish to be guided, in some degree, in my choice,
Annette. I wish to keep my mind so balanced, that it may not be
swayed from a sound discrimination by any thing of imposing
exterior."

"But is not the exterior--that which meets the eye--all that we can
judge from? Is not the exterior a true expression of what is
within?"

"Not by any means, Annette. I grant that it should be, but it is
not. Look at the fact I have just named respecting the gold chains."

"But they were inanimate substances. They were not faces, where
thoughts, feelings, and principles find expression."

"Do you suppose, Annette, that bad gold would ever have been
coloured so as to look even more beautiful than that which is
genuine, if there had not been men who assumed exterior graces and
virtues that were not in their minds? No. The very fact you adduce
strengthens my position. The t