“That’s what I come to say to you, sir. What we have thought of won’t never be. Can’t never be. Tisn’t in reason. When the ’bus run over me in Piccadilly last year, and you picked me up and took me ’ome, you seemed like a prince to me, sir----” “Always vulgar and servile comparisons!” “And when you come about our place, mother said to me, ‘That gent don’t mean no good, and it’s the broom I’ll take to him’; and Sam he said, ‘If he’s harter Hann I’ll give ’im a ’idin’.’ And then you said we was to marry, and mother said it was all moonshine, and Sam didn’t like the idea of it; but you said it would be a beautiful example to all classes, and I--I--well I couldn’t believe my ears, Mr. Bertram.” “What is the use of going over all this ground, Annie?” “I want you to understand, sir. I’ve been thinkin’ and thinkin’ of all you said yesterday, and I see, sir, as how you haven’t a mite o’ love for me, and it makes me feel cold all over like----” “Oh, why do you want love? It is something so vulgar, so unspiritual, so indicative of an unoccupied mind! I have the highest respect for you, which I am about to prove in the strongest manner that any man can prove his sentiments----” “Yes, I know, sir; but--but----” “But there are finer sentiments than love!” “Perhaps there are, sir, for the quality. But love’s poor people’s feast; the only one they ever knows all their days. And--you--don’t love me?” She looks at him fixedly. He is embarrassed. “Should I have given you my mother’s pearls if I did not?” “You haven’t giv’ ’em, and I haven’t took ’em. Some other than me ’ll wear ’em. I came to say to you, Mr. Bertram, that I won’t never marry you. Mother says as ’ow you’ve come into a great fortune; but, whether you’re rich or poor, that’s nothing to me. I won’t marry you, ’cos we’d be miserable; and that’s what I come here all alone to-day to say to you.” “You are faithless, Annie!” “No, sir; I’m faithful. As for me, I’ll remember ye all my days. P’rhaps I’ll marry, p’rhaps I won’t; but I’ll never forget _you_, and I’ll pray for you every night.” Bertram is touched and astonished. “But, my dear little girl, you have my word of honour. I can’t retract it. I will try and make you happy, Annie.” “I’m sure you would try, sir; but you couldn’t do it. You’d make me miserable. You haven’t any love for me; you have said you hadn’t. I couldn’t live like that. I’d work on my knees for you all the day long, but I couldn’t stand your chilly pity and your smiling scorn. I’d die of shame and sorrow!” “My poor child, you exaggerate immensely. You don’t understand what sincere regard I have for you, how honestly I will try to do my duty by you.”