How faint and sick I felt to have Abelard’s grave thus brought near to me, and there was a blur before my eyes, which, for a moment, prevented me from seeing distinctly. Then it cleared away, and I was able to examine the picture and see how the grounds had been improved since that morning when Abelard’s blood was on the grass where now the flowers were growing. It was a fine place, and as I looked at it and thought it had been offered me, ay, might yet be mine, if I would take it, did I feel any regret for having refused it? None whatever. If I were to tell Col. Schuyler everything I should never go there, and if I were to go without telling him my life would be one of wretchedness and hatred of myself. No, better bear with poverty and servitude than live a greater lie than I am living now. So I gave the picture back to Godfrey, and bidding him good-night, came up to my room, where I could be alone, to think over the events of that eventful day. EXTRACT FROM GODFREY’S JOURNAL. “What a regal creature Edith is! and I do believe father thinks so too, but that would be an awful match for her. Jule would scratch her eyes out, and if ever I should marry Alice, which I never shall, but if I do, and bring her home to Schuyler Hill, wouldn’t I have lively times between step-mother and wife; but that is too absurd to consider for a moment. I wish she was younger or that I was older. Let me see,—’most eighteen from ’most twenty-eight, leaves ten. No, that will never do. A man may not marry his grandmother, much less a boy, as Jule calls me in her letter, giving me all sorts of advice, and hoping I will overcome that habit of wriggling,—meaning the way I have of shaking down my pants. As if I knew when I did it. Alice’s letter was a very good one, only why need she call me “Dear Godfrey” when I’m not her Dear Godfrey, and never shall be. Why, she looks older than Miss Lyle herself in that picture, with her hair stuck on the top of her head like a heathen Chinee. I believe I’ll tear the picture up. Miss Lyle did not like it, neither do I, and I will not have it in my possession. I wonder if Miss Lyle would give me hers. I mean to ask her to-morrow.” He did ask her and received no for his answer, and then tore up Alice’s photograph, and packed his valise, and with his father set off for Paris the following day. CHAPTER XII. EDITH AND HER MOTHER. “_And you refused him?_” “Yes, mother, I refused him.” “Are you crazy, child?” “Not as crazy as I should be to accept him.”