she felt to be
commonplace. "People cannot marry without an income. Mr. Fielding did
not think of such a thing till he had a living assured to him."

"But, independently of that, might I hope?" She ventured for an instant
to glance at his face, and saw that his eyes were glistening with a
wonderful brightness.

"How can I answer you further? Is not that reason enough why such a
thing should not be even discussed?"

"No, Miss Clavering, it is not reason enough. If you were to tell me
that you could never love me--me, personally--that you could never
regard me with affection, that would be reason why I should desist--why
I should abandon all my hope here, and go away from Clavering for ever.
Nothing else can be reason enough. My being poor ought not to make you
throw me aside if you loved me. If it were so that you loved me, I think
you would owe it me to say so, let me be ever so poor."

"I do not like you the less because you are poor."

"But do you like me at all? Can you bring yourself to love me? Would you
make the effort if I had such an income as you thought necessary? If I
had such riches, could you teach yourself to regard me as him whom you
were to love better than all the world beside? I call upon you to answer
me that question truly; and if you tell me that it could be so, I will
not despair, and I will not go away."

As he said this they came to a turn in the road which brought the
parsonage gate within their view. Fanny knew that she would leave him
there and go in alone, but she knew also that she must say something
further to him before she could thus escape. She did not wish to give
him an assurance of her positive indifference to him--and still less did
she wish to tell him that he might hope. It could not be possible that
such an engagement should be approved by her father, nor could she bring
herself to think that she could be quite contented with a lover such as
Mr. Saul. When he had first proposed to her she had almost ridiculed his
proposition in her heart. Even now there was something in it that was
almost ridiculous--and yet there was something in it also that touched
her as being sublime. The man was honest, good and true--perhaps the
best and truest man that she had ever known. She could not bring herself
to say to him any word that should banish him forever from the place he
loved so well.

"If you know your own heart well enough to answer me, you should do so,"
he went on to say. "If