ur in your lot. They will
fail you some day, some day too when I may not be by you. Even this
great opening, which is at hand, would never have been at your command,
but for a mysterious gift on which you never could have counted."

"It is very true, Myra, but what then?"

"Why, then, I think we should guard against such contingencies. You know
what is in my mind; we have spoken of it before, and not once only. I
want you to marry, and you know whom."

"Marriage is a serious affair!" said Endymion, with a distressed look.

"The most serious. It is the principal event for good or for evil in all
lives. Had I not married, and married as I did, we should not have been
here--and where, I dare not think."

"Yes; but you made a happy marriage; one of the happiest that was ever
known, I think."

"And I wish you, Endymion, to make the same. I did not marry for love,
though love came, and I brought happiness to one who made me happy. But
had it been otherwise, if there had been no sympathy, or prospect of
sympathy, I still should have married, for it was the only chance of
saving you."

"Dearest sister! Everything I have, I owe to you."

"It is not much," said Myra, "but I wish to make it much. Power in every
form, and in excess, is at your disposal if you be wise. There is a
woman, I think with every charm, who loves you; her fortune may have
no limit; she is a member of one of the most powerful families in
England--a noble family I may say, for my lord told me last night
that Mr. Neuchatel would be instantly raised to the peerage, and
you hesitate! By all the misery of the past--which never can be
forgotten--for Heaven's sake, be wise; do not palter with such a
chance."

"If all be as you say, Myra, and I have no reason but your word to
believe it is so--if, for example, of which I never saw any evidence,
Mr. Neuchatel would approve, or even tolerate, this alliance--I have too
deep and sincere a regard for his daughter, founded on much kindness
to both of us, to mock her with the offer of a heart which she has not
gained."

"You say you have a deep and sincere regard for Adriana," said his
sister. "Why, what better basis for enduring happiness can there be?
You are not a man to marry for romantic sentiment, and pass your life
in writing sonnets to your wife till you find her charms and your
inspiration alike exhausted; you are already wedded to the State, you
have been nurtured in the thoughts of great affairs fro