possible ways to make some
other arrangement. Every hour I am expecting an answer to my own last
letter, and then I do not mean to hesitate any more. So, my dear Edward,
it is with me. We have both, you see, the same sorrows to bear, touching
both our hearts in the same point. Let us bear them together, since we
neither of us can press our own against the other."

"We are strange creatures," said Edward, smiling. "If we can only put
out of sight anything which troubles us, we fancy at once we have got
rid of it. We can give up much in the large and general; but to make
sacrifices in little things is a demand to which we are rarely equal. So
it was with my mother,--as long as I lived with her, while a boy and a
young man, she could not bear to let me be a moment out of her sight. If
I was out later than usual in my ride, some misfortune must have
happened to me. If I got wet through in a shower, a fever was
inevitable. I traveled; I was absent from her altogether; and, at once,
I scarcely seemed to belong to her. If we look at it closer," he
continued, "we are both acting very foolishly, very culpably. Two very
noble natures, both of which have the closest claims on our affection,
we are leaving exposed to pain and distress, merely to avoid exposing
ourselves to a chance of danger. If this is not to be called selfish,
what is? You take Ottilie. Let me have the Captain; and, for a short
period, at least, let the trial be made."

"We might venture it," said Charlotte, thoughtfully, "if the danger were
only to ourselves. But do you think it prudent to bring Ottilie and the
Captain into a situation where they must necessarily be so closely
intimate; the Captain, a man no older than yourself, of an age (I am not
saying this to flatter you) when a man becomes first capable of love and
first deserving of it, and a girl of Ottilie's attractiveness?"

"I cannot conceive how you can rate Ottilie so high," replied Edward. "I
can only explain it to myself by supposing her to have inherited your
affection for her mother. Pretty she is, no doubt. I remember the
Captain observing it to me, when we came back last year, and met her at
your aunt's. Attractive she is,--she has particularly pretty eyes; but I
do not know that she made the slightest impression upon me."

"That was quite proper in you," said Charlotte, "seeing that I was
there; and, although she is much younger than I, the presence of your
old friend had so many charms for