"Ah," I laughed, "you are shrewd. If women only knew it, there's nothing that gives beauty like thought, and it's a charm that increases every year. Well," I continued, with the utmost frankness, "I do like you now, and what is more, I honestly respect you. When you come to New York again, I am going to ask your mother to trust me as if I were your older brother, and I'll take you to see and hear much that I'm sure you'll enjoy." "Oh, that will be splendid!" she cried gladly. "I know mother will let me go with thee, because--because--well, she says thee is a gentleman." "Do you know, Miss Adah, I'd rather have your mother say that than have all Mr. Hearn's thousands. But your mother judges me leniently. To tell you the honest truth, I've come lately to have a very poor opinion of myself. I feel that I would have been a much better man if, in past years, I had seen more of such people as dwell in this house." "Thee remembers what father said to thee," she replied, shyly, with downcast eyes; "this is thy home hereafter." "She looks now," I thought, "as if she might fulfil the dream I wove about her on that memorable day when I first saw her in the meeting-house. How perverse my fate has been, giving me that for which I might well thank God on my knees, and yet which my heart refuses, and withholding that which will impoverish my whole life. Why must the heart be so imperious and self-willed in these matters? An elderly gentleman would say, Everything is just right as it is. It would be the absurdity of folly for Miss Warren to give up her magnificent prospects because of your sudden and sickly sentiment; and what more could you ask or wish than this beautiful girl, whose womanhood has awakened and developed under your very eyes, almost as unconsciously as if a rosebud had opened and shown you its heart? Indeed, but a brief time since I would have berated any friend of mine who would not take the sensible course which would make all happy. If I could but become 'sane and reasonable,' as Miss Warren would say, how she would beam upon me, and, the thought of my disappointment and woe-begone aspect banished, how serenely she would go toward her bright future! And yet in taking this sane and sensible course I would be false to my very soul--false to this simple, true-hearted girl, to whom I could give but a cold, hollow pretence in return for honest love. I would become an arrant hypocrite, devoid of honor and self-respect." "Heaven bless you, Adah!" I murmured. "I love you too well for all your kindness and goodness to pretend to love you so ill." Thoughts like these passed through my mind as I thanked her for all that she had done for me, and told her of such phases of New York life as I thought would interest her. She listened with so intent and childlike an expression on her face that I could scarcely realize that I was talking to one in whose bosom beat the heart of a woman. I felt rather as if I were telling Zillah a fairy story.