"I am solemnly persuaded of it. Happy they who grow up beside mothers and sisters whom they can revere! But for this, almost all men would be without earnestness of heart--without a moral purpose--without generosity, while they are all the while talking of honour. It was so with me before I knew you. I am feeble enough, and selfish enough yet, God knows! but I hope still to prove that you have made a man of me, out of a light, selfish... But what right have I, you may think, to ask you to rely upon me, when I have so lately been what I tell you. I did not mean to ask you yet. This very morning, nothing could be further from my intentions. I do not know how long I should have waited before I should have dared. My sister has rendered me an inestimable service amidst all the mischief she did me. I thank her. Ah! Margaret, you smile!" Margaret smiled again. The smile owned that she was thinking the same thing about their obligations to Mrs Rowland. "Whatever you might have said to me this evening," continued Philip, "if your regard for me had proved to have been quite overthrown--if you had continued to despise me, as you must have done at times--I should still have blessed you, all my life--I should have worshipped you, as the being who opened a new world to me. You lifted me out of a life of trifling--of trifling which I thought very elegant at the time--trifling with my own time and faculties--trifling with other people's serious business--trifling with something more serious still, I fear--with their feelings. As far as I remember, I thought all this manly and refined enough: and but for you, I should have thought so still. You early opened my eyes to all the meanness and gross selfishness of such a life: and if you were never to let me see you again, I believe I could not fall back into the delusion. But if you will be the guide of my life--" Margaret sighed deeply. Even at this moment of vital happiness, her thoughts rested on her sister. She remembered what Hester's anticipations had been, in prospect of having Edward for the guide of her life. "I frighten you, I see," said Philip, "with my confessions; but, be the consequences what they may, I must speak, Margaret. If you despise me, I must do you the justice, and give myself the consolation, of acknowledging what I have been, and what I owe to you." "It is not that," said Margaret. "Let the past go. Let it be forgotten in reaching forward to better things. But do not let us be confident about the future. I have seen too much of that. We must not provide for disappointment. Let us leave it till it comes. Surely," she added, with a gentle smile, "we have enough for the present. I cannot look forward yet."