“I'm bound to say the outlook is not so favorable,” he said. “If we could have put it to a vote just after your uncle spoke we would have clinched them, but Bartell thinks his election depends on beating us today, and being the chief land-owner he has influence.” “It will break my heart,” said the girl, tremulously. “Poor father and mother! They look as if they were on trial for their lives. Oh, I had so much hope as we drove over here this morning, but now--” “I can' t bear to see you take it that way,” said Miller, tenderly. “I did not intend to speak to you so soon about another matter, but I can' t put it off. You have become very, very dear to me, little girl. In fact, I never dreamed there was such a thing as genuine, unselfish love till I knew you. It seems to me that you were actually created for me. I want you to be my wife. Somehow I feel that you care for me, at least a little, and I believe when you realize how much I love you, and how devoted I shall be, you will love me as I do you.” To his surprise she averted her face and said nothing, though he remarked that she had paled a little and compressed her lips. He waited a moment, then said, anxiously: “Haven't you something to say, Adele? Perhaps I have misread you all along and really have no right to hope. Oh, that would be hard to bear!” “It is not that,” she said, her breast heaving suddenly. “It is not that.” “Not that?” he repeated, his wondering eyes fixed on hers. Then she turned to him. “Alan has told me of some of your talks to him about love, and--” “Oh, he has!” Miller laughed out uneasily. “But surely you wouldn't hold anything against me that I said before I met you in Atlanta and fell heels over head in love with you. Besides, I was simply stretching my imagination to save him from making a serious mistake. But I know what it is to care for a girl now, and I have wanted to tell him so, but simply could not face him with my confession--when--when his own sister was in question.” “I have tried to believe,” Adele hesitated, “that you had changed in your ideas of love since--since we learned to know each other, and I confess I succeeded to some extent, but there was one thing that simply sticks and refuses to be eradicated. It sticks more right now than ever. I mean this morning, since--” “Now you _do_ surprise me,” declared Miller. “Please explain. Don't you see I'm simply dying with impatience?” “You pressed the point in one of those talks with brother,” said Adele, quite firmly, “that it was impossible for two people of unequal fortune to be happy together, and--”