k: seriously
uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar expression.

'Miss Harriet,' he said, resuming his chair, 'I wish you would let me
serve you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so, at
present. Do I?'

'Yes,' she answered with a smile.

'I believe every word you have said,' he returned. 'I am full of
self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known
you and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I
hardly know how I ever got here--creature that I am, not only of my own
habit, but of other people's! But having done so, let me do something.
I ask it in all honour and respect. You inspire me with both, in the
highest degree. Let me do something.'

'We are contented, Sir.'

'No, no, not quite,' returned the gentleman. 'I think not quite. There
are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. And his!'
he repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. 'I have been
in the habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting to be done for
him; that it was all settled and over; in short, of not thinking at all
about it. I am different now. Let me do something for him. You too,'
said the visitor, with careful delicacy, 'have need to watch your health
closely, for his sake, and I fear it fails.'

'Whoever you may be, Sir,' answered Harriet, raising her eyes to his
face, 'I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you
say, you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years have
passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any part of
what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better resolution--any
fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and forgotten
reparation--would be to diminish the comfort it will be to him and me,
when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke just now. I thank
you better with these tears than any words. Believe it, pray.

The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his lips,
much as a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child. But more
reverently.

'If the day should ever come, said Harriet, 'when he is restored, in
part, to the position he lost--'

'Restored!' cried the gentleman, quickly. 'How can that be hoped for? In
whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no mistake of
mine, surely, to suppose that his having gained the priceless blessing
of his life, is one cause of the animosity shown to him