"Is that really your opinion?" cried the enraptured soldier; "or are you saying this just to please me--to reconcile me to my jog-trot life, my modest surroundings?" "I mean every word I say." "Then it is in your power to make me richer in happiness than Rothschild or Baring. Dearest Miss Bridgeman, dearest Jessie, I think you must know how devotedly I love you! Till to-day I have not dared to speak, for my limited means would not have allowed me to maintain a wife as the woman I love ought to be maintained; but this morning's post brought me the news of the death of an old Admiral of the Blue, who was my father's first cousin. He was a bachelor like myself--left the Navy soon after the signing of Sir Henry Pottinger's treaty at Nankin in '42--never considered himself well enough off to marry, but lived in a lodging at Devonport, and hoarded and hoarded and hoarded for the mere abstract pleasure of accumulating his surplus income; and the result of his hoarding--combined with a little dodging of his investments in stocks and shares--is, that he leaves me a solid four hundred a year in Great Westerns. It is not much from some people's point of view, but, added to my existing income, it makes me very comfortable. I could afford to indulge all your simple wishes, my dearest! I could afford to help your family!" He took her hand. She did not draw it away, but pressed his gently, with the grasp of friendship. "Don't say one word more--you are too good--you are the best and kindest man I have ever known!" she said, "and I shall love and honour you all my life; but I shall never marry! I made up my mind about that, oh! ever so long ago. Indeed, I never expected to be asked, if the truth must be told." "I understand," said the Major, terribly dashed. "I am too old. Don't suppose that I have not thought about that. I have. But I fancied the difficulty might be got over. You are so different from the common run of girls--so staid, so sensible, of such a contented disposition. But I was a fool to suppose that any girl of----" "Seven-and-twenty," interrupted Jessie; "it is a long way up the hill of girlhood. I shall soon be going down on the other side." "At any rate, you are more than twenty years my junior. I was a fool to forget that." "Dear Major Bree," said Jessie, very earnestly, "believe me, it is not for that reason, I say No. If you were as young--as young as Mr. Hamleigh--the answer would be just the same. I shall never marry. There is no one, prince or peasant, whom I care to marry. You are much too good a man to be married for the sake of a happy home, for status in the world, kindly companionship--all of which you could give me. If I loved you as you ought to be loved I would answer proudly, Yes; but I honour you too much to give you half love."