“I wish you to look higher, dear cousin; you set your thoughts and your hopes too low, on things far more beneath your real station and privileges than the office of a servant was beneath mine. Are you not the child of the King of kings; is not a mansion in heaven offered to you; may not the white robes and golden crown be preparing for you now; and yet you seem as though you knew not of the bliss set before you—you are content to be a servant?” “To whom?” interrupted Clementina. “To the world; and oh, my cousin, the world is a bad master! you have tasted this night what wages it can give; God grant that you know not much more of their bitterness hereafter.” “Why, Fontonore, what is the matter? why do you speak so?” cried Clementina, looking half frightened at her cousin’s earnest face; for it cost him no small effort to address her thus, and he warmed with his own words as they flowed on. “I speak thus because I long to see you happy, really happy. Now you are only, as it were, blowing bubbles of pleasure: you touch them and they break, and are gone for ever. Oh, let us seek that which is lasting and sure—that which will be ours when these frail bodies are dust.” “It is very unkind in you to talk of such things to me when I am weak and nervous, it makes one so horribly gloomy.” “Does it make one gloomy to hear of sins being pardoned; does it make one gloomy to hear of a Father in heaven; to know that treasures are laid up for us where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, where happiness is as lasting as it is perfect. Did it make me gloomy to hear that I had a rich inheritance?” “Oh, that was quite a different thing!” cried Clementina, “from becoming one of your pious saints. You talk to me now only about happiness in religion, but I know very well all the lectures upon holiness, and unworldliness, and repentance that will follow.” “Still my comparison holds,” pursued the young peer, “for I have not yet entered into full possession of my estate; I have yet many a difficult lesson to learn, nor can I spend but a portion of what is my own.” “You have a good deal of enjoyment in the meantime.” “I have, Clementina, and in this, most of all, may my position be compared to a Christian’s. He has great enjoyment, pure, present enjoyment, a beginning of his pleasures even here. Does not the Bible command us to rejoice without ceasing?—who can rejoice if the Christian does not? Yes,” continued Ernest, his eyes sparkling with animation, “how very, very happy those must be who have gone a long way on their pilgrimage, when I, who am only struggling at the entrance, can say that I have found no pleasure to equal it! Oh, Clementina! my joy when I heard that I was raised from being a poor peasant, forced to toil for my bread, to become one of the nobles of the land—the joy which I felt then was as nothing compared to my delight when I first felt assured that my sins were forgiven me.”