rry; "I care more for what you think than any of them.
Your words are severe; but I think they are just."

"O Mr. Endicott!" said Rose, "live for something higher than for
what I think,--than for what any one thinks. Think how many glorious
chances there are for a noble career for a young man with your
fortune, with your leisure, with your influence! is it for you to
waste life in this unworthy way? If I had your chances, I would try to
do something worth doing."

Rose's face kindled with enthusiasm; and Harry looked at her with
admiration.

"Tell me what I ought to do!" he said.

"I cannot tell you," said Rose; "but where there is a will there is a
way: and, if you have the will, you will find the way. But, first, you
must try and repair the mischief you have done to Lillie. By your own
account of the matter, you have been encouraging and keeping up a sort
of silly, romantic excitement in her. It is worse than silly; it is
sinful. It is trifling with her best interests in this life and the
life to come. And I think you must know that, if you had treated her
like an honest, plain-spoken brother or cousin, without any trumpery
of gallantry or sentiment, things would have never got to be as they
are. You could have prevented all this; and you can put an end to it
now."

"Honestly, I will try," said Harry. "I will begin, by confessing my
faults like a good boy, and take the blame on myself where it belongs,
and try to make Lillie see things like a good girl. But she is in bad
surroundings; and, if I were her husband, I wouldn't let her stay
there another day. There are no morals in that circle; it's all a
perfect crush of decaying garbage."

"I think," said Rose, "that, if this thing goes no farther, it will
gradually die out even in that circle; and, in the better circles of
New York, I trust it will not be heard of. Mrs. Van Astrachan and I
will appear publicly with Lillie; and if she is seen with us, and at
this house, it will be sufficient to contradict a dozen slanders. She
has the noblest, kindest husband,--one of the best men and truest
gentlemen I ever knew."

"I pity him then," said Harry.

"He is to be pitied," said Rose; "but his work is before him. This
woman, such as she is, with all her faults, he has taken for better or
for worse; and all true friends and good people, both his and hers,
should help both sides to make the best of it."

"I should say," said Harry, "that there is in this no best sid