“The prospect before you,” answered Rose, firmly, “is a brilliant one; all the honours to which great talents and powerful connexions can help men in public life are in store for you. But those connexions are proud, and I will neither mingle with such as hold in scorn the mother who gave me life, nor bring disgrace or failure upon the son of her who has so well supplied that mother’s place. In a word,” said the young lady, turning away, as her temporary firmness forsook her, “there is a stain upon my name which the world visits on innocent heads: I will carry it into no blood but my own, and the reproach shall rest alone on me.” “One word more, Rose—dear Rose! one more!” cried Harry, throwing himself before her. “If I had been less, less fortunate, as the world would call it,—if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny,—if I had been poor, sick, helpless,—would you have turned from me then? or has my probable advancement to riches and honour given this scruple birth?” “Do not press me to reply,” answered Rose, “the question does not arise, and never will. It is unfair, unkind, to urge it.” “If your answer be what I almost dare to hope it is,” retorted Harry, “it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the dreary path before me. It is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance of a few brief words, for one who loves us beyond all else. Oh, Rose! in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment,—in the name of all I have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo,—answer me that one question!” “Then, if your lot had been differently cast,” rejoined Rose; “if you had been even a little, but not so far, above me; if I could have been a help and comfort to you in some humble scene of peace and retirement, and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds, I should have been spared this trial. I have every reason to be happy, very happy, now; but then, Harry, I own I should have been happier.” Busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl long ago, crowded into the mind of Rose, while making this avowal; but they brought tears with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered, and they relieved her. “I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,” said Rose, extending her hand. “I must leave you now, indeed.” “I ask one promise,” said Harry. “Once, and only once more,—say within a year, but it may be much sooner,—let me speak to you again on this subject for the last time.” “Not to press me to alter my right determination,” replied Rose, with a melancholy smile; “it will be useless.” “No,” said Harry; “to hear you repeat it, if you will; finally repeat it. I will lay at your feet whatever of station or fortune I may possess, and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not seek by word or act to change it.” “Then let it be so,” rejoined Rose; “it is but one pang the more, and by that time I may be enabled to bear it better.”