'Ah, but I am,' speaking with difficulty through her sobs. 'I never cared for you so much. I never wanted you so much. I am so full of gratitude--I long to make you so happy--to make somebody happy. You must take me away from here, where Roy will not make me miserable any more, and then I shall try to forget him--his unhappiness, I mean--and to think only of you.' 'Poor child,' speaking more to himself than to her; 'and this is to what I have brought her.' 'You must not be angry with Roy,' continued the young girl, when her agitation had a little subsided. 'He could not help my seeing what he felt; and then he told me to go back to you. He has tried his hardest, I know he has; every night I prayed that you might come and take me away, and every morning I dreaded lest I should be disappointed. Heriot, it was cruel--cruel to leave me so long.' 'And you will come back with me now?' 'Oh yes,' with a little sighing breath. 'And I am to make you my wife? I am not to wait for your nineteenth birthday?' 'No. Oh, Heriot, how self-willed and selfish I was.' 'Neither one nor the other. Listen to me, dear Polly. Nay, you are trembling so that you can hardly stand; sit beside me on this couch; it is my turn to talk now. I have a little story to tell you.' 'A story, Heriot?' 'Yes; shall we call it "The Guardian's Mistake"? I am not much of a hand in story-telling, but I hope I shall make my meaning clear. What, afraid, my child? nay, there is no sad ending to this story of mine; it runs merrily to the tune of wedding bells.' 'I do not want to hear it,' she said, shrinking nervously; but he, half-laughingly and half-seriously, persisted:-- 'Once upon a time, shall we say that, Polly? Little Heartsease, how pale you are growing. Once upon a time, a great many years ago, a man committed a great mistake that darkened his after life. 'He married a woman whom he loved, but whose heart he had not won. Not that he knew that. Heaven forbid that any one calling himself a man should do so base a thing as that; but his wishes and his affection blinded him, and the result was misery for many a year to come.' 'But he grew comforted in time,' interrupted Polly, softly. 'Yes, time, and friendship, and other blessings, bestowed by the good God, healed the bitterness of the wound, but it still bled inwardly. He was a weary-hearted man, with a secret disgust of life, and full of sad loathing for the empty home that sheltered his loneliness, all the more,' as Polly pressed closer to him, 'that he was one who had ever craved for wife and children. 'It was at this time, just as memory was growing faint, that a certain young girl, the daughter of an old college friend of his, was left to his care. Think, Polly, how sacred a charge to this desolate man; a young orphan, alone in the world, and dependent on his care.' 'Heriot, I beseech you to stop; you are breaking my heart.'