And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even, through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now wronged Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of the "idiot girl!" "O! gracious me!--miss--ma'am--I am so sorry--I'd rather bite out my tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my love for you, dear innocent creature that you are!" and the honest woman sobbed with real passion as she clasped Fanny's hand. "There have been so many young persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined. But you don't understand me. Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I would say. That man, that gentleman--so proud, so well-dressed, so grand-like, will never marry you, never--never. And if ever he says he does love you, and you say you love him, and you two don't marry, you will be ruined and wicked, and die--die of a broken heart!" The earnestness of Sarah's manner subdued and almost awed Fanny. She sank down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and weep over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the darkest and most agitated feelings Fanny's life had hitherto known. At length she said:-- "Why may he not marry me if he loves me?--he is not my brother,--indeed he is not! I'll never call him so again." "He cannot marry you," said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; "I don't say anything about money, because that does not always signify. But he cannot marry you, because--because people who are hedicated one way never marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another. A gentleman of that kind requires a wife to know--oh--to know ever so much; and you--" "Sarah," interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile on her face, "don't say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you promise never to speak unkindly of him again--never--never--never, Sarah!" "But may I just tell him that--that--" "That what?" "That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that if you were to love him it would be a shame in him--that it would!" And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded _now_ in your reason!)--and then the woman's alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the terror came upon her:-- "Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah. If you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again. It is all past--all, dear Sarah!" She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity and counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went up-stairs together--friends. CHAPTER VIII. "As the wind Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out The orange-trees. Rise up, Olympia.--She sleeps soundly. Ho! Stirring at last." BARRY CORNWALL.