de,
and lead me gently back to the forsaken paths of rectitude and peace?"

While the voice in his heart yet spake to him for good, another voice
sounded in his ears, and all his virtuous resolutions melted into air.

"Godfrey," said the voice of Mary Mathews, "dear Mr. Godfrey, have I
become so indifferent to you, that you will neither look at me nor speak
to me?"

She was the last person in the world who at that moment he wished to
see. The sight of her recalled him to a sense of his degradation, and
all that he had lost by his unhappy connexion with her, and he secretly
wished that she had died instead of her father.

"Mary," he said, coldly, "what do you want with me? The morning is damp
and raw; you had better go home."

"What do I want with you?" reiterated the girl. "And is it come to that?
Can you, who have so often sworn to me that you loved me better than
anything in heaven or on earth, now ask me, in my misery, what I want
with you?"

"Hot-headed rash young men will swear, and foolish girls will believe
them," said Godfrey, putting his arm carelessly round her waist, and
drawing her towards him. "So it has been since the world began, and so
it will be until the end of time."

"Was all you told me, then, false?" said Mary, leaning her head back
upon his shoulder, and fixing her large beautiful tearful eyes upon his
face.

That look of unutterable fondness banished all Godfrey's good
resolutions. He kissed the tears from her eyes, as he replied,

"Not exactly, Mary. But you expect too much."

"I only ask you not to cease to love me--not to leave me, Godfrey, for
another."

"Who put such nonsense into your head?"

"William told me that you were going to marry Miss Whitmore."

"If such were the case, do you think I should be such a fool as to tell
William?"

"Alas! I am afraid that it is only too true." And Mary burst into tears
afresh. "You do not love me as you did, Godfrey, when we first met and
loved. You used to sit by my side for hours, looking into my face, and
holding my hand in yours; and we were happy--too happy to speak. We
lived but in each other's eyes; and I hoped--fondly hoped--that that
blessed dream would last for ever. I did not care for the anger of
father or brother--woe is me! I never had a mother. One kiss from those
dear lips--one kind word breathed from that dear mouth--sunk from my ear
into my heart, and I gloried in what I ought to have considered my
shame. Oh, why are