if I turned from one duty to take
up another. How could I expect a blessing upon it? We are both young; I
but nineteen, you twenty-three. Five years from now we shall still have
a long life before us, and then we shall be all the happier for this
self-denial. Is it asking too much of you?--too great a sacrifice,
James?"

"I cannot understand you, Lucy. Don't speak enigmas."

"Well, then, have I not explained it clearly?--that my labor is
necessary to my mother and all of them, until the younger children are
old enough to act for themselves; and, even to be your wife, great
happiness as it would be to me, I cannot desert them."

"You are a noble girl, Lucy," he said, as you would admire anything that
was beautiful in a picture or a statue. And yet she seemed to know that
he did not feel with her--"could not understand her," as he had said.

"And do you not think I am right?"

"I can't say that I do--that is, exactly. I can't see that you are bound
to waste five years, the best years of life, when the family can be
otherwise provided for. You say your uncles have offered to do all that
is necessary; your mother would always be welcome in my house." And
James Allan actually regarded himself, and had done so for some days, a
perfect model of virtuous self-denial in making the proposal, and "going
on" with a match that more worldly friends now advised him against.
There was a difference between the daughter of the prosperous merchant
and the ruined bankrupt.

"You never have had brothers and sisters, James."

"And so shall love you all the better, darling. You will have none to be
jealous of."

"Ah, now listen to me. Do not place obstacles in the path of my duty.
Tell me, am I selfish towards you?"

She did not think he could say "yes," or feel it. She knew that if the
probation had been proposed to her for his sake, she would have
consented joyfully, happy in the power to show how true her love was,
and she would have strengthened and encouraged him in every way.

He was silent for a moment, and then he said, slowly--

"And what do you propose to do? Teach, I suppose." It grated upon his
ear to think that any one who would be hereafter connected with him
should use time or talent in her own support. He would much rather have
given the necessary sum outright; but that Lucy would not listen to.

"No, I shall not teach."

"And what in creation will you do?" he ejaculated, surprised from his
accustomed politenes