what I seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of your 'Life, in all
the culture which I have sought to bestow on your docile childhood, I
repeat, that I have been but the egotist. And now, when you have reached
that age when it becomes me to speak, and you to listen; now, when you
are under the sacred roof of my own mother; now I ask you, can you accept
this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed, have left
it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? Can you aid me to regard life
as a duty, and recover those aspirations which once soared from the
paltry and miserable confines of our frivolous daily being? Helen, here
I ask you, can you be all this, and under the name of--Wife?"

It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, indefinable emotions
that passed through the inexperienced heart of the youthful listener as
Harley thus spoke. He so moved all the springs of amaze, compassion,
tender respect, sympathy, child-like gratitude, that when he paused and
gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speechless, overpowered.
Harley smiled as he gazed upon her blushing, downcast, expressive face.
He conjectured at once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed
her mind; that she had never contemplated him in the character of wooer;
never even sounded her heart as to the nature of such feelings as his
image had aroused.

"My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, "there is some
disparity of years between us, and perhaps I may not hope henceforth for
that love which youth gives to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what
you will frankly answer, Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or
under the roof of your Italian friends, any one you prefer to me?"

"No, indeed, no!" murmured Helen. "How could I; who is like you?" Then,
with a, sudden effort--for her innate truthfulness took alarm, and her