"Charles, listen! What I am going to tell you, may serve to place you upon your guard against what may cause you great suffering. I know not why, but I take a strange interest in you--coming alone into the great world a mere youth as you are, leaving in the mountains from which you say you come all those friends whose counsel might guide you. Listen to me, then, as to an elder brother--a brother who has grown old early in thought and feeling, who at twenty-five has already lived half the life of man--at least in the brain and heart. Listen. I was always impulsive and sanguine, always proud and self-reliant. My father was wealthy. I was told from my boyhood that I was a genius--that I had only to extend my hand, and the slaves of the lamp, as the Orientals say, would drop into it all the jewels of the universe. Success in politics, poetry, law, or letters--the choice lay with me, but the event was certain whichever I should select. Well, my father died--his property was absorbed by his debts--I was left with an orphan sister to struggle with the world. "I arranged our affairs--we had a small competence after all debts were paid. We live yonder in a small cottage, and in half an hour I shall be there. I seldom take these strolls. Half my time is study--the rest, work upon our small plot of ground. This was necessary to prepare you for what I have to say. "I had never been in love until I was twenty-four and a half--that is to say, half a year ago. But one day I saw upon a race-course a young girl who strongly attracted my attention, and I went home thinking of her. I did not know her name, but I recognised in her bright, frank, bold face--it was almost bold--that clear, strong nature which has ever had an inexpressible charm for me. I had studied that strange volume called Woman, and had easily found out this fact: that the wildest and most careless young girls are often far more delicate, feminine, and innocent than those whose eyes are always demurely cast down, and whose lips are drawn habitually into a prudish and prim reserve. Do you understand my awkward words?" "Yes," said the boy quietly. "Well," pursued Mowbray, "in forty-eight hours the dream of my life was to find and woo that woman. I instinctively felt that she would make me supremely happy--that the void which every man feels in his heart, no matter what his love for relatives may be, could be filled by this young girl alone--that she would perfect my life. Very well--now listen, Charles." "Yes," said the boy, in a low tone. "I became acquainted with her--for when did a lover ever fail to discover the place which contained his mistress?--and I found that this young girl whom I had fallen so deeply in love with was a great heiress." "Unhappy chance!" exclaimed the boy; "I understand easily that this threw an ignoble obstacle in the way. Her friends----" "No--there you are mistaken, Charles," said Mowbray "the obstacle was from herself." "Did she not love you?"