s well as I; and what is more, I scarcely know
what they are. I am not complaining; I am merely stating facts. If my
life is spared a few years longer, we will try to change all that.
Before I die I should like to see you happily married to some one who is
worthy of you. Nothing ever gave me so much pain as to see you suffer at
the time that fellow deceived you,--nothing at least except the thought
of your becoming his wife. But that is past, thank Heaven! and I think I
am right in saying that you have forgotten him long since."

He talked in a half soliloquizing fashion, in short, deliberate
sentences, and looked up to me as he finished, for a confirmation of his
opinion.

"A woman never forgets, father. But I am very glad you saved me from
marrying him."

"Yes, yes, it would have been madness," he replied eagerly. "I could not
have endured the thought of that good-for-nothing squandering my
property. I should never have relented, and I should have been in my
grave before this. But let by-gones be by-gones. To-day you are older
and wiser, and I have confidence that you will keep the credit of our
name untarnished. It has taken three generations of honest men to
accumulate the fortune you will inherit," he added proudly.

"But what do you wish me to do with it, father?"

"That is for you to decide when I am gone. I could tell you how to make
money, and how to keep it, perhaps; but how to spend it wisely requires
a different sort of talent than I possess. I have told you, from the
first, that it was to be your life-work. Busy as I have been, I have
tried to place the means of understanding the commercial value of money
in your way, so that you might not be wholly ignorant when the time came
to act."

"And it would be a bitter disappointment to you, then, if I were to give
it all up?"

"Give it up?" he glanced at me with a comical expression, as though I
had said something preposterous. "You couldn't give it up if you wanted
to. It will come to you by my will. I shall leave it all in your hands."

For a few moments I did not reply. Then I turned to him and said:--

"You were speaking just now of wishing to see me happily married, and
you referred to Mr. Dale."

"Well?"

"Don't be concerned, father. It is not of him I wish to speak, except to
say that though I have been very grateful he is not my husband, I do not
believe I shall ever care for anybody else in the same way. But I have
had, this very day, an of