"Lancy, I will be honest and plain-spoken; then there will be no misunderstanding. Of course, I care a good deal for you, but I really do not believe I love you as a woman should love the man she marries; and you may meet the one who will give you that love some day, then you will be sorry you put that question to me. Honestly, Lancy, although we have cared very much for each other's society, I don't believe we would be half as happy together as man and wife as we are now. I can't imagine myself living with you day after day, and performing the little daily services for you that come so naturally from your mother, and which goes to make your father's life so comfortable and happy." "Why need you pattern your future life after that of my mother; your mother does not--" Lancy paused in embarrassment. "Oh! you need not mind saying it to me; it is only between ourselves. You want to say that my mother does not put herself out to do much for the happiness of the rest of us." "No, I was not intending to go so far as that, Dexie." "Well, I hope when I get married that I shall care enough for my husband to feel like exerting myself a little towards making the house comfortable. I want a happier married life than I see at home. I suppose we all have our ideals, but I would sooner take your mother for an example of what a wife should be, rather than mine." "I believe you and I would live very happily together, Dexie; if you cared for me as much as I care for you, there would be no trouble," and he pressed the hand he held in his. "Oh! I daresay we might get along quite _passably_, Lancy; but that doesn't seem to me enough, and I do not want to be bound by a promise which, in the future, we might both wish was never made." "Dexie, I never thought you would put me off like this," said Lancy, in a wounded tone "You have known all this time how much I care for you, and how it was to end, and yet you think I may fall in love with someone else when you have gone away. How can you think such a thing?" "I have no cause to think so, Lancy, for indeed you have been most kind to me all along; but I cannot help thinking that you may meet someone else who would suit you better, and yet you would feel bound to me if a promise was made between us. Let me go away free, Lancy, and if by the time you are ready to take a wife you find your feelings the same as they are now, ask me your question again; perhaps I will know my own mind by that time, for I must confess I hardly do at present." "I will never change; but you--you want to leave the way open for yourself, and I thought you cared for me, Dexie."