yet, Mary," said he, recovering something of his habitual tone,
"there is an alternative--one which, if we could accept of it from
choice as freely as we might adopt it from convenience, would solve our
difficulties at once. My heart misgives me, dearest, as I approach it.
I tremble to think how far my selfishness may bias you--how thoughts of
_me_ old and worthless as I am, may rise uppermost in your breast
and gain the mastery, where other and very different feelings should
prevail. I have ever been candid with you, my child, and I have reaped
all the benefit of my frankness; let me then tell you all. An offer has
been made for your hand, Mary, by one who, while professing the utmost
devotion to you, has not forgotten your old grandfather. He asks that
he should be one of us, Mary--a new partner in our firm--a new member in
the little group around our hearth. He speaks like one who knew the ties
that bind us most closely--he talks of our home here as we ourselves
might do--he has promised that we shall never leave it, too. Does your
heart tell you whom I mean, Mary? If not, if you have not already
gone before me in all I have been saying, his visions of happiness are
baseless fabrics. Be candid with me, as I have ever been with you. It is
a question on which everything of the future hangs; say if you guess of
whom I speak."

Mary Leicester's cheek grew scarlet; she tried to speak, but could not;
but with a look far more eloquent than words, she pressed the old man's
hand to her lips, and was silent.

"I was right then, Mary; you have guessed him. Now, my sweet child,
there is one other confession you must make me, or leave me to divine it
from that crimson cheek. Have his words found an echo in your heart?"

The old man drew her more closely to his side, and passed his arm around
her as he spoke; while she, with heaving bosom and bent-down head,
seemed struggling with an agitation she could not master. At last she
said,--

"You have often told me, papa, that disproportion of fortune was an
insurmountable obstacle to married happiness; that the sense of perfect
equality in condition was the first requisite of that self-esteem
which must be the basis of an affection free and untrammelled from all
unworthy considerations."

"Yes, dearest; I believe this to be true."

"Then, surely, the present is not a case in point; for while there is
wealth and influence on one side, there are exactly the opposites on the
other.