the man to
make you happy! Let me urge you, then, to keep him at a distance."

"I should do injustice to my own feelings, aunt, and to my own sense
of right, were I to do so. In a word, and to speak out plainly, he
offered himself last evening, and I accepted him!"

"Rash girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Riston, lifting her hands in
astonishment and pain, "how could you thus deceive your best friend?
How so sadly deceive yourself?"

"Do not distress yourself so, aunt. You have mistaken the character
of Mr. Smith. He is, in every way, a different man from what you
think him. He is altogether worthy of my regard and your confidence.
I do not wish to deceive you, aunt; but you set yourself so
resolutely against Mr. Smith from the first that I could not make up
my mind to brave your opposition to a step which I was fully
convinced it was right for me to take."

"Ah, Margaretta! You know not what you are doing. Marriage is a far
more serious matter than you seem to think it. Look around among
your young acquaintances, and see how many have wedded unhappily.
And why? Because marriages were rushed into from a fond impulse,
vainly imagined to be true affection. But no true affection can
exist where there is not a mutual knowledge of character and
qualities of mind. Now what do you know, really, about Mr. Smith?
What does he know about you? Why, nothing! I want no stronger
evidence of his unworthy motives, than the fact of his having
offered himself after a three weeks' acquaintance. What could he
know of you in that time? Surely not enough to be able to determine
whether you would make him a suitable wife or not--enough, perhaps,
to be satisfied of the amount of your wealth."

"You are unjust towards Mr. Smith," said Margaretta, half
indignantly.

"Not half so unjust as he is towards you. But surely, my niece, you
will reconsider this whole matter, and take full time to reflect."

"I cannot reconsider, aunt. My word is passed, and I would suffer
any thing rather than break my word."

"You will suffer your heart to be broken, if you do not."

"Time will prove that!" and Margaretta tossed her head with a kind
of mock defiance.

"Have you fixed your wedding day?" the aunt asked after a few
moments' silence.

"Not yet. But Mr. Smith wants to be married in three weeks."

"In three weeks!"

"Yes; but I told him that I could not get ready within a month."

"A month! Surely you are not going to act so precipitately?"

"I cann