He spoke, gazing at his daughter with a look of some anxiety, and with the white eyebrows drawn far over the eyes. "I know not that I am right, my Helen," he added; "I almost begin to fear not. I feel I should only be doing right if I were to bid this youth make his visits fewer and shorter; and yet I would not pain him for a great deal, for he is kind, and good, and honest; but it must come to that in the end, Helen." "Oh! no, my father, no," cried Helen Clive, imploringly. "Why should you do that?" "Listen to me, Helen," said her father; "you have not thought of these things fully. He loves you, Helen." "I know it," cried Helen Clive, with the ingenuous blood mounting into her cheek; "I know it, and I love him; but why should that prevent him from coming? Why should that deprive us of the very happiness which such love gives?" "Because it cannot be happy, my Helen," answered her father; "because he is a gentleman of high degree, and you the daughter of no better than a yeoman." "My father," said Helen, rising, and laying the hand that was uninjured on her father's arm, "have I not heard you say that the blood of the yeoman Clive is as pure as that of the noble house of Adelon, and perhaps of older strain? Is not the land you cultivate your own, as much or more than his that he farms to others? There is not that difference between us that should be reasonably any bar; but even suppose it were so, what could you seek by separating us?" "Your own happiness, my child," answered Clive, gravely. "By making us both miserable some years, months, or weeks, before we otherwise might be so," rejoined Helen, eagerly; "that is all that can be done now. We love as much as we can love, and so long as we are doing nought that is wrong, violating no duty to you, nor to his father, surely we may enjoy the little portion of happiness that is sure, and leave to the future and God's good will the rest." She spoke eagerly, and with her colour heightened, her eye full of light, and her beautiful lips quivering in their vehemence; and Clive could not help feeling a portion of a father's pride rise up and take part with her. He could not but say to himself, as he gazed at her in her beauty, "She is worthy to be the bride of the greatest lord in all the land."--"Well, Helen, well," he said, using an expression which was habitual to him, "I must trust you both; but remember, my child, in making over to you the care of your own happiness, I put mine under your guardianship also, for mine is wrapped up in yours. But hark! there is Norries pacing to and fro above. I must go and speak with him. That wild spirit will not brook its den much longer." And walking to the door, he mounted the stairs to the room which was just over that where he had been sitting.