Elsie shook her head, which was filled with vague ideas--the ideas of a restless and a doubting time. Then she went back to her original proposition. 'Always like this, George--and never to get tired of it. Time to stand still--nothing to change: never to get tired of it: never to want anything else. That is Heaven, I suppose.' 'We are on earth, Elsie,' said her lover. 'And on earth Everything changes. If we were to go on drifting down the stream, we should get into trouble over the weir. To capsize would be a pretty interruption to your Heaven, wouldn't it! And the sun will soon be setting and the river will get misty; and the banks will grow ugly. But the chief thing is that we shall both grow old. And there is such a lot that we have got to do before we grow old.' 'Everything has to be done,' said Elsie. 'I suppose we have done nothing yet.' 'We have got to get married for the first thing, before we grow old.' 'Couldn't you love an old woman, George?' 'Not so well, Elsie,' her lover replied, truthfully. 'At least, I think not.--And oh! Elsie, whenever I do think of the future, my heart goes down into my boots. For the prospect grows darker and darker.' Elsie sighed. She knew, already, too well, what was in his mind. Plenty of girls, in these days, know the familiar tale. 'Darker every day,' he repeated. 'They keep on crowding into the profession by multitudes, as if there was room for any number. They don't understand that what with the decay of the landed interest and of the country towns, and the cutting down of the costs, and the work that goes to accountants, there isn't half the business to do that there was. There don't seem any partnerships to be had for love or money, because the few people who have got a good thing have got no more than enough for themselves. It is no use for the young fellows to start by themselves; so they have got to take whatever they can get, and they are glad to get even a hundred a year to begin with--and I am seven-and-twenty, Elsie, and I'm drawing two hundred pounds a year.' 'Patience, George! something will turn up. You will find a partnership somewhere.' 'My child, you might as well tell Robinson Crusoe that a boiled leg of mutton with caper sauce was going to turn up on his desert island. We must not hope for the impossible. I ought to be grateful, I suppose, considering what other men are doing. I am planted in a good solid House. It won't run away, so long as the old man lives.' 'And after that?'