of the heart, spread,
and leave all in ashes. Let me be brief: I did not mean thus weakly to
complain--I to whom heaven has given so many blessings! I felt, as it were,
separated from the common objects and joys of men. I grew startled to see
how, year by year, wayward humors possessed me. I resolved again to attach
myself to some living heart--it was my sole chance to rekindle my own. But
the one I had loved remained as my type of woman, and she was different
from all I saw. Therefore I said to myself, 'I will rear from childhood
some young fresh life, to grow up into my ideal.' As this thought began to
haunt me, I chanced to discover you. Struck with the romance of your early
life, touched by your courage, charmed by your affectionate nature, I said
to myself, 'Here is what I seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of
your life, in all the culture which I have sought to bestow on your docile
childhood, I repeat, that I have been but the egotist. And now, when you
have reached that age, when it becomes me to speak, and you to listen--now,
when you are under the sacred roof of my own mother--now I ask you, can you
accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed,
have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? Can you aid me to regard
life as a duty, and recover those aspirations which once soared from the
paltry and miserable confines of our frivolous daily being? Helen, here I
ask you, can you be all this, and under the name of--Wife?"

It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, indefinable emotions
that passed through the inexperienced heart of the youthful listener, as
Harley thus spoke. He so moved all the springs of amaze, compassion,
tender respect, sympathy, childlike gratitude, that when he paused, and
gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speechless, overpowered.
Harley smiled as he gazed upon her blushing, downcast, expressive face. He
conjectured at once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed her
mind; that she had never contemplated him in the character of wooer; never
even sounded her heart as to the nature of such feelings as his image had
aroused.

"My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, "there is some
disparity of years between us, and perhaps I may not hope henceforth for
that love which youth gives to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what
you will frankly answer--Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or
under the roof of your