days: and recollecting with a
melancholy pleasure that the time was, when they could move us. Perhaps
then, when we are quaint old folks and talk of the times when our step
was lighter and our hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the
trials that so endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that
current, down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly. And
having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us--as
young as you and I are now, Kate--may come to us for sympathy, and pour
distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel enough for,
into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother and his maiden
sister.'

Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but they
were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when he had
ceased to speak.

'Am I not right, Kate?' he said, after a short silence.

'Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I
have acted as you would have had me.'

'You don't regret?'

'N--n--no,' said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground with
her little foot. 'I don't regret having done what was honourable
and right, of course; but I do regret that this should have ever
happened--at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I--I don't know
what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has agitated me very
much.'

It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand pounds
at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the owner of the
blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its utmost farthing, in
perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her happiness. But all he
could do was to comfort and console her by kind words; and words they
were of such love and kindness, and cheerful encouragement, that poor
Kate threw her arms about his neck, and declared she would weep no more.

'What man,' thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards,
to the brothers' house, 'would not be sufficiently rewarded for any
sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate's, which,
but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all
praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such
a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is
always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good
bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose
is pr