'Because I knew it would please Jessie,' I answered honestly, 'and because I want to make Jessie's birthday the happiest day in her life and mine.' She pinched my cheek merrily, as though she understood my meaning. I had fully resolved that on that day I would ask Jessie to be my wife. Tortured almost beyond endurance by the doubts and difficulties which surrounded me, I had in some way gathered courage to look my position steadily in the face, and the moment I did so, the way seemed clear before me. I became strengthened immediately, and the fair promise which hope held forth appeared realised in anticipation. I set aside all obstacles for future consideration, and mentally leaped out of the entanglement of feeling which had brought so much discomfort into our lives. 'It is for me to speak,' I thought, 'and to speak plainly and manfully.' I painted the future in the fairest colours. My prospects of success were growing brighter and brighter; my sketches for the Christmas story which had been intrusted to me to illustrate were approved of by the author and the publisher, and I felt I only wanted opportunity to rise far above the sphere of life which, in the natural course of things, I could have expected to occupy. 'Jessie's love for the stage,' I thought, 'and her wish to become an actress, only arise from her thoughtfulness of her future, and from her state of dependence on uncle Bryan. Well, I can clear away all doubt; I can offer her a good home; and I can release her from uncle Bryan, and, if she wishes, can pay him what she thinks she owes him.' I resolutely closed the eyes of my mind on my mother's declaration, that wherever our home was, uncle Bryan must share it. I knew too well that it would be impossible for Jessie and me to be happy together, with him as a member of our household. All these things could be considered and settled by and by, when Jessie had promised to be my wife. I reproached myself that I had not spoken plainly to her before now; I had, as it were, driven her by my faint-heartedness to do what she might not have done, if she had had a protector whom she loved and who loved her. All this and other reasoning of the same nature I carried out exactly in the way which best suited my hopes, and at length I lay in my cloud-built castles at peace with myself; for it was not to be doubted that my dearest wishes would now be surely realised. I had an instinctive consciousness that Josey West was thoroughly acquainted with the position of affairs between Jessie and me, and knowing her to be my friend, I was convinced that she would have warned me if she had had any doubt of Jessie's affection for me.