contempt for
her birth. Rose suffered most acutely, for she saw how simple was the
remedy, and yet could not prevail on Helen to abate one jot of her
restless ambition. The true spirit of a Christian woman often moved
her to secret earnest prayer, that God, of His mercy, would infuse
an humbler and holier train of thought and feeling into Helen's mind;
and, above all, she prayed that it might not come too late.

"You do not think with Mrs. Ivers in all things, I perceive," said the
gentleman I have twice alluded to.

"I am hardly, from my situation," replied Rose, "privileged to think
her thoughts, though perhaps I may think of them."

"A nice distinction," he answered.

"Our lots in life are differently cast. In a week I return to
Abbeyweld; I only came to be her nurse in illness, and was induced to
remain a little longer because I was useful to her. They will go to
the Continent now, and I shall return to my native village."

"But," said the gentleman, in a tone of the deepest interest, "shall
you really return without regret?"

"Without regret? Oh yes!"

"Regret nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Suppose," he continued, in a suppressed tone of deep
emotion--"suppose that a man, young, rich, and perfectly aware of
the value of your pure and unsullied nature, was to lay his hand and
heart"--

"I pray, I entreat you, say not another word," interrupted Rose,
breathlessly. "If there should be any such, which is hardly possible,
sooner than he should deign to make a proposal to me, I would tell him
that before I came to visit my cousin, only the very night before, I
became the betrothed of another."

"Of some one, Rose, who took advantage of your ignorance of the
world--of your want of knowledge of society?"

"Oh no!" she replied, covering her face with her hand; "oh no! he is
incapable of that. He would have suffered me to leave Abbeyweld free
of promise, but I would not."

"And do you hold the same faith still Rose? Think, has not what you
have seen, and shared in, made you ambitious of something beyond a
country life? Your refined mind and genuine feeling, your taste--do
not, I implore you, deceive yourself."

"I do not, sir; indeed, I do not. Pardon me; I would not speak
disrespectfully of those above me. Of course, I have not been admitted
into that familiarity which would lead me to comprehend what at
present appears to me even more disturbed by the littleness of life
than a country village. Conventional fo