"Then, as a stream, that spouting from a cliff Fails in mid-air, but gathering at the base, Remakes itself and flashes down the vale, Went on in passionate utterance." "Essie! they say that women are more capable of self-sacrifice than men. Prove it to me now! Sacrifice this pride of yours; consent to the one thing that would make me leave England with almost a light, instead of _such_ a heavy heart!" She is silent for a minute or two, halting between two opinions; hesitating, struggling with herself: then she speaks, rapidly, but not easily-- "I cannot, Bob--I cannot! Ask me anything, not quite so hard, and I'll do it! Just think how young I am, seventeen last birthday, I have probably forty or fifty more years to live; do you wish me to promise to be a pensioner for _half a century_ on your mother's charity?" He does not answer. "Don't be angry with me for having a little self-respect!" she cries, passionately, snatching his hand. "I will go and stay with your people till I have found something to do, if they will have me. I will get your mother to help me in looking for work; I will take her advice in _everything_, do whatever she tells me; I will do anything--anything in life to please you, except----" "Except the one thing I wish," he answers, sadly and coldly. "If you speak in that tone I shall have to promise you _anything_," she says, despairingly; "but it will only be perjury, for I shall infallibly break my promise again. Why should not I work?" she goes on, in a sort of indignation at his silence. "Am I a cripple, or an idiot? Let me wait till I am either the one or the other, before I _come upon the parish!_" she says, with the bitter pride of poverty; "at all events, let us call things by their right names." "As you will," he answers, deeply wounded. "If you take it as a great indignity to be offered a home with the oldest friends you have in the world, of course I can say no more; but oh, child! you are wrong--you are wrong!" CHAPTER XXIV.