u have got to discover the vanity and hollowness of them
some time, but what must you suffer on your way to this experience!
Money and position cannot bring happiness in marriage. Nothing can do
that but love."

"But, you see, I propose to have love too," was the gay response. "I
assure you it will not be a difficult matter to love such a man as
this, and I assure you also that he is fathoms deep in love with me
already. He is manly, handsome, healthy, well-bred, and altogether
charming. As to my ever loving any created being as I love you,
mother darling, that, I have always told you, is out of the question;
but I can imagine myself caring a good deal for this young heir of
Lord Hurdly."

"Bettina," said the mother, gravely, laying her hands on her
daughter's shoulder and looking deep into her eyes, "you will have to
come to it by suffering, my child, but you will come to it at
last--the knowledge that even the love which you give to me is slight
and inadequate, and not worthy to be compared with the love which
you will one day feel for the man who, as your husband, shall call
forth your highest feeling. I believe this with firm conviction, and
I beg you not to throw away your chance of a woman's best heritage.
Don't marry this man, or any man, until you can feel that even the
great love you have given me is poor compared with that. Heaven knows
I love you, child, and mother-love is stronger than daughter-love;
but I could not love you so well or so worthly if I had not loved
your father more."

These words, so impatiently listened to, were destined to come back
to Bettina afterward, though at the time she resented the very
suggestion of what they predicted.

Her instinct about young Spotswood had been exactly true. He had
become fascinated with her during their first interview, and had
followed up the acquaintance with ardor, making her very soon a
proposal of marriage.

Lord Hurdly, his cousin, was unmarried, it appeared, and was an
inveterate enemy to matrimony. Horace Spotswood was his nearest of
kin and legal heir. But Lord Hurdly was not over sixty two or three,
and was likely to live a long time. Finding it, perhaps, not very
agreeable to be constantly reminded that another man would some day
stand in his shoes, his lordship had procured for Horace a diplomatic
position at St. Petersburg, where, although the society was
delightful, the pay was small. As his heir, however, Lord Hurdly made
him a very libe