ng bloom."
A hope flashed up. "Do you suppose," said I,
"That any impulse less supreme than love--
Love bold to venture, but intemerate--
Could bring me here--that Pity could do this?"

"I believe all," he answered, "all you say;
But do not bid me whisper more than this:
The circumstances that environ me,
And which none know,--not even my father knows,--
Shut me out utterly from any hope
Of marriage or of love. A wretch in prison
Might better dream of marrying than I.
But O sweet lady! rashly generous,--
Around whom, a protecting atmosphere,
Floats Purity, and sends her messengers
With flaming swords to guard each avenue
From thoughts unholy and approaches base,--
Thou who hast made an act I deemed uncomely
Seem beautiful and gracious,--do not doubt
My memory of thy worth shall be the same,
Only expanded, lifted up, and touched
With light as dear as sunset radiance
To summer trees after a thunder-storm."

And there was silence then between us two.
Thought of myself was lost in thought for him.
What was my wreck of joy, compared with his?
Health, youth, and competence were mine, and he
Was staking all of his to save another.
If my winged hopes fell fluttering to the ground,
Regrets and disappointments were forgotten
In the reflection, He, then, is unhappy!
"Good by!" at length I said, giving my hand:
"Even as I was believed, will I believe.
You do not deal in hollow compliment;
And we shall meet again if you're content.
The good time will return--and I'll return!"
"If you return, the good time will return
And stay as long as you remain," said he.

XI.

It is as I supposed: an obstacle
Which his assumption of his father's debts
Has raised before him unexpectedly!
I did not let a day go by before
I saw the elder Lothian, and he,
Distressed by what I told him of a secret,
Applied himself to hunting up a key
To the mysterious grief: at last he got it,
Though not by means that I could justify.
In Charles's private escritoire he found
A memorandum that explained it all.
Among the obligations overlooked,
In settling up the firm's accounts, was one
Of fifty thousand dollars, payable
To an estate, the representatives
Of which were six small children and a widow,
Dependent now on what they could derive
Of income from this debt; and manfully
Charles shoulders it, although it crushes him;
And