happy, but I would not force the matter against her inclinations.
You will always regret it, if you make so good a child shed one needless
tear. After all, sister, what need of haste? 'Tis a young bird yet. Why
push it out of the nest? When once it is gone, you will never get it
back. Let the pretty one have her little day to play and sing and be
happy. Does she not make this garden a sort of Paradise with her little
ways and her sweet words? Now, my sister, these all belong to you; but,
once she is given to another, there is no saying what may come. One
thing only may you count on with certainty: that these dear days, when
she is all day by your side and sleeps in your bosom all night, are
over,--she will belong to you no more, but to a strange man who hath
neither toiled nor wrought for her, and all her pretty ways and dutiful
thoughts must be for him."

"I know it, I know it," said Elsie, with a sudden wrench of that jealous
love which is ever natural to strong, passionate natures. "I'm sure it
isn't for my own sake I urge this. I grudge him the girl. After all,
he is but a stupid head. What has he ever done, that such good-fortune
should befall him? He ought to fall down and kiss the dust of my shoes
for such a gift, and I doubt me much if he will ever think to do it.
These men think nothing too good for them. I believe, if one of the
crowned saints in heaven were offered them to wife, they would think it
all quite natural, and not a whit less than their requirings."

"Well, then, sister," said the monk, soothingly, "why press this matter?
why hurry? The poor little child is young; let her frisk like a lamb,
and dance like a butterfly, and sing her hymns every day like a bright
bird. Surely the Apostle saith, 'He that giveth his maid in marriage
doeth well, but he that giveth her not doeth better.'"

"But I have opened the subject already to old Meta," said Elsie; "and
if I don't pursue it, she will take it into her head that her son is
lightly regarded, and then her back will be up, and one may lose the
chance; and on the whole, considering the money and the fellow, I don't
know a safer way to settle the girl."

"Well, sister, as I have remarked," said the monk, "I could not order
my speech to propose anything of this kind to a young maid; I should so
bungle that I might spoil all. You must even propose it yourself."

"I would not have undertaken it," said Elsie, "had I not been frightened
by that hook-nosed ol