Again happiness stepped up close and showed her beautiful face. Should he take her; should he receive the rare and lovely thing and shut out that stern sense of justice, of relieving the oppressed, of seeing the wronged righted, which had been as his sheet-anchor yesterday, which had been more or less the sheet-anchor of his life. Here was his position. He was engaged to marry Charlotte Harman; he loved her with his whole heart; she loved him with her whole heart; she was a beautiful woman, a noble woman, a wealthy woman. With her as his wife, love, riches, power might all be his. What more could the warm, warm feelings of youth desire? what more could the ambitions of youth aspire to? Yesterday, it is true, he had felt some rising of that noble pride which scorns to receive so much and give so little. He had formed a wild, almost passionate determination to obtain his brief before he obtained his bride, but Mr. Harman had soothed that pride to sleep. There was indeed a grave and sad reason why this beautiful and innocent woman whom he had won should receive all the full comfort his love and protection could give her as quickly as possible. Her father was dying, and she must not know of his approaching death. Her father wished to see her Hinton's wife as soon as possible. Hinton felt that this was reasonable, this was fair; for the sake of no pride, true or false, no hoped-for brief, could he any longer put off their wedding. Nay, far from this. Last night he had urged its being completed two months sooner than Charlotte herself had proposed. He saw by the brightness in Charlotte's eyes that, though she did not at once agree to this, her love for him was such that she would marry him in a week if he so willed it. He rejoiced in these symptoms of her great love, and the rejoicings of last night had risen in a fuller tide this morning. Yes, it was the rule of life, the one everlasting law, the old must suffer and die, the young must live and rejoice. Yes; Hinton felt very deep sympathy for Mr. Harman last night, but this morning, his happiness making him more self-absorbed than really selfish, he knew that the old man's dying and suffering state could not take one iota from his present delight.