y pressed her hand to my lips.

"Tell me," repeated I, "what can I do to serve you? I read to you a
little now, and you are pleased with my reading. I copy for you when you
want the time. I guide the reins for you when you choose to ride. Humble
offices, indeed, though, perhaps, all that a raw youth like me can do
for you; but I can be still more assiduous. I can read several hours in
the day, instead of one. I can write ten times as much as now.

"Are you not my lost mamma come back again? And yet, not _exactly_ her,
I think. Something different; something better, I believe, if that be
possible. At any rate, methinks I would be wholly yours. I shall be
impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought, every minute,
someway does you good.

"How!" said I, (her eye, still averted, seemed to hold back the tear
with difficulty, and she made a motion as if to rise,) "have I grieved
you? Have I been importunate? Forgive me if I have offended you."

Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated, with
difficulty, "Tears are too prompt with me of late; but they did not
upbraid you. Pain has often caused them to flow, but now
it--is--_pleasure_."

"What a heart must yours be!" I resumed. "When susceptible of such
pleasures, what pangs must formerly have rent it!--But you are not
displeased, you say, with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as
your own in every thing. Direct me; prescribe to me. There must be
_something_ in which I can be of still more use to you; some way in
which I can be wholly yours----"

"_Wholly mine!_" she repeated, in a smothered voice, and rising. "Leave
me, Arthur. It is too late for you to be here. It was wrong to stay so
late."

"I have been wrong; but how too late? I entered but this moment. It is
twilight still; is it not?"

"No: it is almost twelve. You have been here a long four hours; short
ones I would rather say,--but indeed you must go."

"What made me so thoughtless of the time? But I will go, yet not till
you forgive me." I approached her with a confidence and for a purpose at
which, upon reflection, I am not a little surprised; but the being
called Mervyn is not the same in her company and in that of another.
What is the difference, and whence comes it? Her words and looks engross
me. My mind wants room for any other object. But why inquire whence the
difference? The superiority of her merits and attractions to all those
whom I knew would surely account for my f