it such. How he could
dare to link his supreme littleness with consummate perfection; to freight
the miserable barque of his fortunes with so precious a cargo; to encounter
the feeling--and there is no escape for it--"I must drag that woman down,
not alone into obscurity, but into all the sordid meanness of a small
condition, that never can emerge into anything better." He cannot disguise
from himself that it is not within his reach to attain power, or place,
or high consideration. Such men make no name in life; they leave no
mark on their time. They are heaven-born subordinates, and never refute
their destiny. Does a woman with ambition--does a woman conscious of
her own great merits--condescend to ally herself, not alone with small
fortune--that might be borne--but with the smaller associations that make
up these men's lives? with the peddling efforts to mount even one rung
higher of that crazy little ladder of their ambition--to be a clerk of
another grade--a creature of some fifty pounds more--a being in an upper
office?'

'And the prince--for he ought to be at least a prince who should make me
the offer of his name--whence is he to come, Mr. Atlee?'

'There are men who are not born to princely station, who by their genius
and their determination are just as sure to become famous, and who need but
the glorious prize of such a woman's love--No, no, don't treat what I say
as rant and rodomontade; these are words of sober sense and seriousness.'

'Indeed!' said she, with a faint sigh. 'So that it really amounts to
this--that I shall actually have missed my whole fortune in life--thrown
myself away--all because I would not wait for Mr. Atlee to propose to me.'

Nothing less than Atlee's marvellous assurance and self-possession could
have sustained this speech unabashed.

'You have only said what my heart has told me many a day since.'

'But you seem to forget,' added she, with a very faint curl of scorn on
her lip, 'that I had no more to guide me to the discovery of Mr. Atlee's
affection than that of his future greatness. Indeed, I could more readily
believe in the latter than the former.'

'Believe in both,' cried he warmly. 'If I have conquered difficulties in
life, if I have achieved some successes--now for a passing triumph, now
for a moment of gratified vanity, now for a mere caprice--try me by a mere
hope--I only plead for a hope--try me by hope of being one day worthy of
calling that hand my own.'

As he