“Good morrow, Mark,” said she, extending her hand, and with a smile that betokened no angry memory of the preceding night; “you took but little sleep for one so much fatigued as you were.” “And you, cousin, if I mistake not, even as little. I saw a light burning in your room when day was breaking.” “An old convent habit,” said she, smiling; “our matins used to be as early.” A low, soft sigh followed this speech. “Yes,” said Mark, “you have reason to regret it; your life was happier there; you had the pleasure of thinking, that many a mile away in this remote land, there were relatives and friends to whom you were dear, and of whom you might feel proud; sad experience has told you how unworthy we are of your affection, how much beneath your esteem. The cold realities that strip life of its ideal happiness are only endurable when age has blunted our affections and chilled our hearts. In youth their poignancy is agony itself. Yes, Kate, I can dare to say it, even to you, would that you had never come amongst us.” “I will not misunderstand you, Mark; I will not affect to think that, in your speech, there is any want of affection for me; I will take it as you mean it, that it had been better for me; and, even on your own showing, I tell you, nay. If I have shed some tears within these old walls, yet have my brightest hours been passed within them. Never, until I came here, did I know what it was to minister to another's happiness; never did I feel before the ecstacy of being able to make joy more pleasurable, and sorrow less afflicting. The daughter feeling has filled up what was once a void in my poor heart; and when you pity me for this life of loneliness, my pulse has throbbed with delight to think how a duty, rendered by one as humble and insignificant as I am, can ennoble life, and make of this quiet valley a scene of active enjoyment.” “So you are happy here, Kate,” said he, taking her hand, “and would not wish to leave it?” “No, Mark, never; there would be no end to my ambition were the great world open to me, and the prizes all glittering before me--ambitions which should take the shape not of personal aggrandizement, but high hope for objects that come not within a woman's sphere. Here, affection sways me; there, it might be prejudice or passion.”