with Marion,--had not the least effect towards
convincing her, so were the few words the very food on which she
lived. There was no absurdity in the language of love that was not to
her a gem so brilliant that it deserved to be garnered in the very
treasure house of her memory! All those long useless sermons were
preserved because they had been made rich and rare by the expression
of his passion.

She understood him, and valued him at the proper rate, and measured
him correctly in everything. He was so true, she knew him to be so
true, that even his superlatives could not be other than true! But as
for his reasoning, she knew that that came also from his passion. She
could not argue the matter out with him, but he was wrong in it all.
She was not bound to listen to any other voice but that of her own
conscience. She was bound not to subject him to the sorrows which
would attend him were he to become her husband. She could not tell
how weak or how strong might be his nature in bearing the burden
of the grief which would certainly fall upon him at her death. She
had heard, and had in part seen, that time does always mitigate the
weight of that burden. Perhaps it might be best that she should go
at once, so that no prolonged period of his future career should
be injured by his waiting. She had begun to think that he would be
unable to look for another wife while she lived. By degrees there
came upon her the full conviction of the steadfastness, nay, of the
stubbornness, of his heart. She had been told that men were not
usually like that. When first he had become sweet to her, she had
not thought that he would have been like that. Was it not almost
unmanly,--or rather was it not womanly? And yet he,--strong and
masterful as he was,--could he have aught of a woman's weakness about
him? Could she have dreamed that it would be so from the first, she
thought that from the very first she could have abstained.

"Of course I shall be at home on Tuesday at two. Am I not at home
every day at all hours? Mrs. Roden shall not be there as you do not
wish it, though Mrs. Roden has always been your friend. Of course I
shall be alone. Papa is always in the City. Good to you! Of course I
shall be good to you! How can I be bad to the one being that I love
better than all the world? I am always thinking of you; but I do wish
that you would not think so much of me. A man should not think so
much of a girl,--only just at his spare moments. I