how to come to a resolution. Now
he put the matter before her without a moment's notice and expected
an instant decision. "Speak the truth, Mary;--what you think about
it;--without minding what anybody may say of you." But Mary could not
say anything, so she again burst into tears.

"Surely you know the state of your own heart, Mary?"

"I don't know," she answered.

"My only object is to secure your happiness;--the happiness of both
of us, that is."

"I'll do anything you please," said Mary.

"Well then, I'll tell you what I think. I fear that a marriage
between us would not make either of us contented with our lives. I'm
too old and too grave for you." Yet Mary Snow was not younger than
Madeline Staveley. "You have been told to love me; and you think that
you do love me because you wish to do what you think to be your duty.
But I believe that people can never really love each other merely
because they are told to do so. Of course I cannot say what sort of
a young man Mr. Fitzallen may be; but if I find that he is fit to
take care of you, and that he has means to support you,--with such
little help as I can give,--I shall be very happy to promote such an
arrangement."

Everybody will of course say that Felix Graham was base in not
telling her that all this arose, not from her love affair with Albert
Fitzallen, but from his own love affair with Madeline Staveley. But
I am inclined to think that everybody will be wrong. Had he told her
openly that he did not care for her, but did care for some one else,
he would have left her no alternative. As it was, he did not mean
that she should have any alternative. But he probably consulted her
feelings best in allowing her to think that she had a choice. And
then, though he owed much to her, he owed nothing to her father;
and had he openly declared his intention of breaking off the match
because he had attached himself to some one else, he would have put
himself terribly into her father's power. He was willing to submit to
such pecuniary burden in the matter as his conscience told him that
he ought to bear; but Mr. Snow's ideas on the subject of recompense
night be extravagant; and therefore,--as regarded Snow the
father,--he thought that he might make some slight and delicate use
of the meeting under the lamp-post. In doing so he would be very
careful to guard Mary from her father's anger. Indeed Mary would be
surrendered, out of his own care, not to that of her father,