ul attraction for
the female nature. It is the kind of debt of honor she can appreciate
best of all, and, it must be owned, it is one she knows how to deal with
in a noble and generous spirit To the man so placed with regard to her
she will observe an undying fidelity; she will defend him at any cost;
she will uphold him at any sacrifice. Now, May not only confessed to
Clara that Layton had made her the offer of his heart, but she told
how heavily on her conscience lay the possible--if it were so much as
possible--sin of having given him any encouragement.

"You must write to the poor fellow for me, Clara. You must tell him from
me--from myself, remember--that it would be only a cruelty to suffer him
to cherish hope; that my self-accusings, painful enough now, would be
tortures if I were to deceive him. I'm sure it is better, no matter what
the anguish be, to deal thus honestly and fairly; and you can add that
his noble qualities will be ever dwelt on by me--indeed, you may say by
both of us--with the very deepest interest, and that no higher happiness
could be than to hear of his success in life."

May said this and much more to the same purpose. She professed to feel
for him the most sincere friendship, faintly foreshadowing throughout
that it was not the least demerit on his part his being fascinated by
such attractions as hers, though they were, in reality, not meant to
captivate him.

I cannot exactly say how far Clara gave a faithful transcript of her
friend's feelings, for I never saw but a part of the letter she wrote;
but certainly it is only fair to suppose, from its success, that it was
all May could have desired.

The epistle had followed Layton from an address he had given in Wales
to Dublin, thence to the north of Ireland, and finally overtook him in
Liverpool the night before he sailed for America.

He answered it at once. He tendered all his gratitude for the kind
thoughtfulness that had suggested the letter. He said that such an
evidence of interest was inexpressibly dear to him at a moment when
nothing around or about him was of the cheeriest He declared that, going
to a far-away land, with an uncertain future before him, it was a great
source of encouragement to him to feel that good wishes followed his
steps; that he owned, in a spirit of honest loyalty, that few as were
the months that had intervened, they were enough to convince him of the
immense presumption of his proffer. "You will tell Mis