"Miss Cameron--Evelyn--ah, still let me call you so, as in the happy and more familiar days of your childhood, I wish you could read my heart at this moment. You are about to leave your home; new scenes will surround, new faces smile on you; dare I hope that I may still be remembered?" He attempted to take her hand as he spoke; Evelyn withdrew it gently. "Ah, my lord," said she, in a very low voice, "if remembrance were all that you asked of me--" "It is all,--favourable remembrance, remembrance of the love of the past, remembrance of the bond to come." Evelyn shivered. "It is better to speak openly," said she. "Let me throw myself on your generosity. I am not insensible to your brilliant qualities, to the honour of your attachment; but--but--as the time approaches in which you will call for my decision, let me now say, that I cannot feel for you--those--those sentiments, without which you could not desire our union,--without which it were but a wrong to both of us to form it. Nay, listen to me. I grieve bitterly at the tenor of your too generous uncle's will; can I not atone to you? Willingly would I sacrifice the fortune that, indeed, ought to be yours; accept it, and remain my friend." "Cruel Evelyn! and can you suppose that it is your fortune I seek? It is yourself. Heaven is my witness, that, had you no dowry but your hand and heart, it were treasure enough to me. You think you cannot love me. Evelyn, you do not yet know yourself. Alas! your retirement in this distant village, my own unceasing avocations, which chain me, like a slave, to the galley-oar of politics and power, have kept us separate. You do not know me. I am willing to hazard the experiment of that knowledge. To devote my life to you, to make you partaker of my ambition, my career, to raise you to the highest eminence in the matronage of England, to transfer pride from myself to you, to love and to honour and to prize you,--all this will be my boast; and all this will win love for me at last. Fear not, Evelyn,--fear not for your happiness; with me you shall know no sorrow. Affection at home, splendour abroad, await you. I have passed the rough and arduous part of my career; sunshine lies on the summit to which I climb. No station in England is too high for me to aspire to,--prospects, how bright with you, how dark without you! Ah, Evelyn! be this hand mine--the heart shall follow!"