“If you have any sins to confess, my dear Ralph,” he said, “it will not be like old times. I shall never have another like you—no, never,” he added affectionately. “Perhaps you won’t call it a sin,” replied Ralph; “if not, so much the better. All the same, for me, if not a sin, it was a piece of inexcusable folly. You would never guess what I have done, Mr. Price.” “Should I not?” asked he drily. “Are you quite sure of that?” “Quite sure,” answered Ralph, “no one would believe it of me. This is what I have done, Mr. Price. I have fallen in love like any unfledged boy; or rather not like that at all, for that would be a passing affair, which, to my sorrow and my joy in one, mine is not. It is very sober earnest with me, Mr. Price. It is indeed. The whole of everything is changed to me, and what to do, how to act, I cannot for the life of me decide.” “And the young lady?” put in Mr. Price. “Yes, the young lady. That’s the worst of it, the worst and the best. I am horribly afraid, horribly afraid—and yet, at the bottom of my selfish heart intensely, unspeakably delighted to think so,—afraid I say, that she, my poor dear child, has been no wiser than I. Is it possible, Mr. Price, do you think it possible, that any sweet, lovely girl could care for me? Ugly, stupid and unattractive as I am. I can hardly believe it. And yet—” It was rather difficult for Mr. Price to help laughing at Ralph’s most original way of making his confession. But in pity to his unmistakable earnestness, he controlled himself, and said gravely,— “Yes, Ralph, I do think it possible, very possible, that such a girl as you describe may care for you as you deserve to be cared for. And if I am right in what I suppose, I think you a wise and fortunate man. Fortunate in having obtained, wise, in having sought for, the love of that young girl; for she is not one to love lightly. She is a sweet, true girl, and she will be an even sweeter woman! I can’t pity you, Ralph, if your choice, as I suspect, has fallen on Marion Freer.” “You have guessed rightly,” said Ralph, “though how you came to do so passes my comprehension. But you don’t understand it all yet, Mr. Price. ‘Wise and fortunate,’ you call me. The former I certainly have not been in this matter. To tell the truth I never thought about it, till the mischief was done. Fortunate, most wonderfully so, I should indeed consider myself, were I free to avail myself of this good fortune.