"I can't bear to give things up,--because they _were_ pleasant," Bel said. "But I suppose I shall have to go away. It isn't home; there isn't anybody to make home _with_ any more. I know what I _had_ thought of, a while ago; I believe I know what there is that I might do; I am just waiting until the thoughts come back, and begin to look as they did. Nothing looks as it did yet." "Nothing?" asked Morris Hewland, his eyes questioning of hers. "Yes,--friends. But the friends are all outside, after all." Hewland stood silent. How beautiful it might be to make home for such a little heart as this! To surround her with comfort and prettiness, such as she loved and knew how to contrive out of so little! To say,--"Let us belong together. Make home with _me_!" Satan, as an angel of light, entered into him. He knew he could not say this to her as he ought to say it; as he would say it to a girl of his own class whom father and mother would welcome. There was no girl of his own class he had ever cared to say it to. This was the first woman he had found, with whom the home thought joined itself. And this could not rightly be. If he took her, he would no longer have the things to give her. They would be cast out together. And all he could do was to make pictures, of which he had never sold one, or thought to sell one, in all his life. He would be just as poor as she was; and he felt that he did not know how to be poor. Besides, he wanted to be rich for her. He wanted to give her,--now, right off,--everything. Why shouldn't he give? Why shouldn't she take? He had plenty of money; he was his father's only son. He meant right; so he said to himself; and what had the world to do with it? "I wish I could take care of you, Bel! Would you let me? Would you go with me?" The words seemed to have said themselves. The devil, whom he had let have his heart for a minute, had got his lips and spoken through them before he knew. "Where?" asked Bel. "Home?" "Yes,--home," said the young man, hesitating. "Where your mother lives?" Bel Bree's simplicity went nigh to being a stronger battery of defense than any bristling of alarmed knowledge. "No," said Morris Hewland. "Not there. It would not do for you, or her either. But I could give you a little home. I could take care of you all your life; all _my_ life. And I would. I will never make a home for anybody else. I will be true to you, if you will trust me,--always. So help me God!"