“How do you do, Raymond? This is my son, Dr. Otterback,” were the only words of greeting or of introduction bestowed upon the youth by his father. Dr. Otterback immediately addressed his conversation to the young man, and Withers turned and looked in Sophie’s face; her countenance was serene, cheerful, kindly; what _could_ be the reason? he was at a loss to account for it; yet he felt the shadow and the weight lifting from his own heart, passing from his own brain. Love, charity, the very sun of the moral atmosphere when it shines out, how the vapors are lifted, how the clouds disperse, how all nature rises and smiles in its beams. “All our friends are out upon the lawn—it is pleasant there. Will you come out, Mr. Withers?” she asked. For the first time since she had known him, with an air of graceful self-possession and gallantry, he lifted her fair hand to his lips, drew her arm within his own, and led her forth. They sat down upon the bench in the piazza. At first she talked cheerfully of the nearest topics of conversation, the company, the night, the weather, the moon; but seeing that he relapsed into silence and dejection, she thought he felt compunction for all the ill he had wrought her, and that this compunction was awakened by her own kindness to him. She was not sorry that he felt this; yet now she wished to dissipate the gloom. Laying her hand timidly, gently, upon his brow, and raising from it the heavy mass of black hair that seemed to rest there like a cloud, she said:— “Come, clear your brow, Mr. Withers, or you will make me fear that you regret taking under your wing a little girl like me.” “And I _do_ regret it, Sophie—I _do_ regret it!” he said, and sighing heavily, he arose and paced up and down the piazza several times, and then threw himself into a seat far from her. She watched him there; at first from natural feelings of delicacy she hesitated to approach him; but when he dropped his head between his hands, and sigh after sigh and groan after groan rent his bosom, she paused no longer, but arising, crossed the piazza, and taking the seat by his side, and taking his hand, she pressed it between her own. He turned and gazed inquiringly into her eyes, his gaze no longer cold, brilliant, and chilling, but still piercing, and full of anguish. Suddenly he shut his eyes, and groaning “Oh Sophie!” turned away his head and attempted to withdraw his hand. She retained and pressed it, and again passing her soft, cool hand over his hot brow, she said, gently— “Come, Mr. Withers, cheer up, have faith in me. I love you.—I _do_—not, indeed, with the glad love of a young bride for the young husband of her choice, but with a feeling that will stand you in better stead—that will perhaps last longer and bear more—with the serious, thoughtful love one earnest human soul that has known isolation and sorrow can feel for another, desolated, tortured, suffering, yet worthy in its anguish, of admiration and respect.”