“I admit, sir,” replied Hal, “the force of your argument, but I deny the truth of its intended conclusion. I yield to no being in the world in the disinterestedness of my passion for Miss Wilton. I would sacrifice my love and myself a thousand times rather than occasion her one moment’s care or privation. It is not, sir, because I cannot at first place her in the sphere she now so fairly and brightly adorns, that I must necessarily conduct her to a hovel in a bye-street. Something is due to my own sense of her worth and my own pride in preparing for her--if I were to be so blessed as to call her mine--a home as fitting to her beauty and goodness, as to the station she quitted to pass her life with me. I should, indeed, be wanting in true love if I did not endeavour to make the change as slight as indomitable perseverance and unflagging industry could accomplish. I agree, sir, that true love seeks to elevate the being it worships; but requited love will make a palace of a prison and gild the roof of a humble cottage, as though it were the fretted ceiling of a palace. Love sees through love’s eyes and with love’s urgings, and it seldom finds room for discontent if the heart it prizes remains true, faithful, and devoted to it. The great secret of a loving woman’s happiness, sir, consists not in the halls she treads, the terraced flower-garden she may pace, the high sphere in which she may have been born and lived, the accessories of wealth, its gaieties, or its pleasures. It is the discovery that the idol she was first induced to worship is not molten brass, but the pure gold for which she first accepted it. That her trusting faith has not been abused, that the ardent manner of him who won her heart has not waned, that the beaming look of fond affection remains unchanged, that the soft word has not grown harsh, and that the ever-watchful solicitude for her happiness remains as intact as when it first moved her gentle heart to respond to its generous tenderness. That loving, trusting heart that you would chain to its own sphere, would pine itself into the grave if, upon such a plea, it were confined to its halls, its gardens, parks, and extended landscape; but, believe me, it would not grieve if its lot, though cast in a lower sphere, rested on a manly, faithful, truthful nature, which never swerved from the deep and passionate affection it once professed. However, sir, at best we are but theorizing--I am content to abide the issue. I will not, I pledge my honour--my dearest possession--ask your permission to woo Miss Wilton until I am fairly in a social position which will give me some title to do so. Further, sir, if it be your wish, great as may be the pain and privation to me, I will not attempt to visit, or to see, or to speak with her in any manner which may infringe upon the relation in which we now stand to each other in the eyes of the world--acquaintances. I will not, if unprepared to