“Yes,” said Esther, showing her lover a rapturous face whose attractiveness was not marred by a suspicion of shyness. “I do, if Fred Macdonald is to be my husband.” “Then if either of us should have a long illness, or if I should lose my position, we would have to depend on your parents and mine,” said Fred. “Let us wait, then,” said Esther, “until you can have saved something, before we are married.” “And be like Charley Merrick and Kate Armstrong, who’ve been engaged for ten years, and are growing old and doleful about it.” “_I’ll_ never grow old and doleful while waiting for _my_ lover to succeed,” said Esther, in a tone which might have carried conviction with it had Fred been entirely in a listening humor. But as Fred imagined himself in the position of the many unsuccessful young men in Barton, and of the anxious-looking husbands who had once been as spirited as himself, he fell into a frame of mind which was anything but receptive. In his day-dreams marriage had seemed made up of many things beside the perpetual companionship of Esther: it had among its very desirable components a handsome, well-furnished house, a carriage of the most approved style, an elegant wardrobe for Esther, and one of faultless style for himself, a prominent pew in church, and, not least of all, a sideboard which should be better stocked than that of any of his friends. To banish these from his mind for a moment, and imagine himself living in two or three rooms; cheapening meat at the butcher’s; never driving out but when he could borrow somebody’s horse and antiquated buggy; wearing a suit of clothes for two or three years in succession, while Esther should spend hours in making over and over the dresses of her unmarried days; all this made him almost deaf to Esther’s loyal words, and nearly oblivious to the fact that the wisest and sweetest girl in Barton was resting within his arm. Suddenly he aroused himself from his revery, and exclaimed, in a tone which Esther did not at first recognize as his own, “Ettie, your ideas are honest and lofty, but you must admit that I know best about matters of business. I can’t deliberately throw away everything I have done, and form entirely different business connections. I’ve always regretted my promise to stop drinking after our marriage; but I’ve trusted that you, with your unusual sense, would see the propriety of absolving me from it.” Esther shrank away from Fred, and hid her face in her hands, whispering hoarsely, “I can’t. I can’t, and I never will.” She dropped into a chair and burst into tears. Fred’s momentary expression of anger softened into sorrow, but his business instinct did not desert him. “Ettie,” said he tenderly, “I thought you trusted me.”