He was not alone, but sat by the side of a
fair young girl in a mourning dress; in whose eyes there were tears,
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas
Past.

"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little. Another
idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to
come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"What idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is
nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it
professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid
reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until
the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what
then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and
content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly
fortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made,
you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she
returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I
_have_ thought of it, and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words, no. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of
life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of
any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,"
said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of
himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think not."

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven
knows! When _I_ have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and
irresistible it must be.

"But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe
that you would choose