This was on a Tuesday; on the Wednesday he did not speak to her on the subject. The Thursday was Christmas Day, and she went to church with Mrs. Roden. Nor did he on that day allude to the matter; but on the evening she made to him a little request. "To-morrow, father, is a holiday, is it not, in the City?" "So they tell me. I hate such tom-fooleries. When I was young a man might be allowed to earn his bread on all lawful days of the week. Now he is expected to spend the wages he cannot earn in drinking and shows." "Father, you must leave me here alone after our dinner. He will come for his answer." "And you will give it?" "Certainly, father, certainly. Do not question me further, for it must be as I told you." Then he left her as he had done before; but he did not urge her with any repetition of his request. This was what occurred between Marion and her father; but on the Wednesday she had gone to Mrs. Roden as she had promised, and there explained her purpose more fully than she had before been able to do. "I have come, you see," she said, smiling. "I might have told you all at once, for I have changed nothing of my mind since first he spoke to me all so suddenly in the passage down-stairs." "Are you so sure of yourself?" "Quite sure;--quite sure. Do you think I would hurt him?" "No, no. You would not, I know, do so willingly." "And yet I must hurt him a little. I hope it will hurt him just a little." Mrs. Roden stared at her. "Oh, if I could make him understand it all! If I could bid him be a man, so that it should wound him only for a short time." "What wound!" "Did you think that I could take him, I, the daughter of a City clerk, to go and sit in his halls, and shame him before all the world, because he had thought fit to make me his wife? Never!" "Marion, Marion!" "Because he has made a mistake which has honoured me, shall I mistake also, so as to dishonour him? Because he has not seen the distance, shall I be blind to it? He would have given himself up for me. Shall I not be able to make a sacrifice? To such a one as I am to sacrifice myself is all that I can do in the world." "Is it such a sacrifice?" "Could it be that I should not love him? When such a one comes, casting his pearls about, throwing sweet odours through the air, whispering words which are soft-sounding as music in the heavens, whispering them to me, casting them at me, turning on me the laughing glances of his young eyes, how could I help to love him? Do you remember when for a moment he knelt almost at my feet, and told me that I was his friend, and spoke to me of his hearth? Did you think that that did not move me?" "So soon, my child;--so soon?" "In a moment. Is it not so that it is done always?" "Hearts are harder than that, Marion."