must remember that in making up your mind, you must think of him as
well as of yourself. If you do not love him;--if you feel that as
his wife you should not love him, there is not another word to be
said. I need not explain to my daughter that under such
circumstances she would be wrong to encourage the visits of a
suitor. But your mother says you do love him."

"I will not ask you. But if you do;--if you have so told him, and
allowed him to build up an idea of his life-happiness on such
telling, you will, I think, sin greatly against him by allowing a
false feminine pride to mar his happiness. When once a girl has
confessed to a man that she loves him, the confession and the love
together put upon her the burden of a duty towards him, which she
cannot with impunity throw aside." Then he kissed her, and bidding
her give him a reply on the morning of the new year, left her with
her mother.

She had four days for consideration, and they went past her by no
means easily. Could she have been alone with her mother, the
struggle would not have been so painful; but there was the necessity
that she should talk to Isabella Holmes, and the necessity also that
she should not neglect the Coverdales. Nothing could have been
kinder than Bella. She did not speak on the subject till the
morning of the last day, and then only in a very few words.
"Bessy," she said, "as you are great, be merciful."

"But I am not great, and it would not be mercy."

"As to that," said Bella, "he has surely a right to his own
opinion."