f her powers of attracting, she was never ashamed of
herself.

"And why not? I think that is nonsense, Caroline. If you really
thought that, you would not receive him as you will do, nor his
friend neither."

"I do think it; that is to say, I think it very probable. I cannot
explain to you, Adela, all the turns of my mind, or of my heart. I
would not for worlds of gold marry a man I did not love."

"And do not you love Mr. Bertram?"

"Yes, I do; at times very, very much; but I fear the time may come
when I may love him less. You will not understand me; but the fact
is, I should love him better if he were less worthy of my love--if he
were more worldly."

"No, I do not understand that," said Adela, thinking of her love, and
the worldly prudence of him who should have been her lover.

"That is it--you do not understand me; and yet it is not selfishness
on my part. I would marry a man in the hope of making him happy."

"Certainly," said Adela; "no girl should marry unless she have
reasonable hope that she can do that."

"He would wish me to go to him now, at once; when we have no
sufficient income to support us."

"Four hundred a year!" said Adela, reproachfully.

"What would four hundred a year do in London? Were I to consent, in
a year or two he would be sick of me. He would be a wretched man,
unless, indeed, his law-courts and his club kept him from being
wretched;--his home would not do so."

Adela silently compared the matter with her own affairs: her ideas
were so absolutely different. "If he could have contented himself to
live upon potatoes," she had once thought to herself, "I could have
contented myself to live on the parings." She said nothing of this
however to Caroline. Their dispositions she knew were different.
After all, it may be that Miss Waddington had a truer knowledge of
human nature.

"No, I shall not consent; I will not consent to be the cause of his
misery and poverty; and then he will be angry with me, and we shall
quarrel. He can be very stern, Adela; very."

"He is impetuous; but however angry he may be, he forgives
immediately. He never bears malice," said Adela, remembering her
early dealings with the boy-friend of her girlhood.

"He can be very stern now. I know it will come to our quarrelling;
and when he finds that he cannot have his own way, that I cannot
yield to him, his proud heart will revolt from me; I know it will."

Adela could only say that were she in her friend