ok here! You love Nell as heartily as she deserves. Old Simon,
your father, and old Madge, your mother, both love her as if she were
their daughter. Why don't you make her so in reality? Why don't you
marry her?"

"Come, Jack," said Harry, "you are running on as if you knew how Nell
felt on the subject."

"Everybody knows that," replied Jack, "and therefore it is impossible to
make you jealous of any of us. But here goes the ladder again--I'm off!"

"Stop a minute, Jack!" cried Harry, detaining his companion, who was
stepping onto the moving staircase.

"I say! you seem to mean me to take up my quarters here altogether!"

"Do be serious and listen, Jack! I want to speak in earnest myself now."

"Well, I'll listen till the ladder moves again, not a minute longer."

"Jack," resumed Harry, "I need not pretend that I do not love Nell; I
wish above all things to make her my wife."

"That's all right!"

"But for the present I have scruples of conscience as to asking her to
make me a promise which would be irrevocable."

"What can you mean, Harry?"

"I mean just this--that, it being certain Nell has never been outside
this coal mine in the very depths of which she was born, it stands to
reason that she knows nothing, and can comprehend nothing of what exists
beyond it. Her eyes--yes, and perhaps also her heart--have everything
yet to learn. Who can tell what her thoughts will be, when perfectly new
impressions shall be made upon her mind? As yet she knows nothing of
the world, and to me it would seem like deceiving her, if I led her to
decide in ignorance, upon choosing to remain all her life in the coal
mine. Do you understand me, Jack?"

"Hem!--yes--pretty well. What I understand best is that you are going to
make me miss another turn of the ladder."

"Jack," replied Harry gravely, "if this machinery were to stop
altogether, if this landing-place were to fall beneath our feet, you
must and shall hear what I have to say."

"Well done, Harry! that's how I like to be spoken to! Let's settle,
then, that, before you marry Nell, she shall go to school in Auld
Reekie."

"No indeed, Jack; I am perfectly able myself to educate the person who
is to be my wife."

"Sure that will be a great deal better, Harry!"

"But, first of all," resumed Harry, "I wish that Nell should gain a real
knowledge of the upper world. To illustrate my meaning, Jack, suppose
you were in love with a blind girl, and someone said to you, '