"Other considerations apart, I should like nothing better; but, as matters stand with me now, it's quite out of the question." Morton was silent for a moment. "Ned," he said, at length, "I heard a rumor yesterday. It is no part of mine to obtrude myself into your private affairs, and I should not speak if I had not a reason, the better half of which is, that I think I can serve you. I heard that you were paying your addresses to Miss Euston." "One cannot look twice at a lady without having it noted down in black and white, and turned into tea-table talk." "I met Miss Euston a few evenings ago. I used to know her before I went to Europe, but had not seen her since. If what I heard is true, I think you have shown something more than good taste." "You remember her," said Meredith, after a pause, "as she was the summer when you and I went to New Baden." "Yes, I knew her then very well." "I liked her better at that time than you ever supposed. She was very young; just out of school, in fact. She had lived all her life in the suburbs, and had grown up like an unpruned rose bush,--a fine stock in a strong soil, but throwing out its shoots quite wildly and at random." "I know it; but all that is changed, I can't conceive how." "I can tell you. The one person whom she loved and stood in awe of was her father. He was a man, and a strong one. He died suddenly about the time you went away. It was the first blow she had ever felt; and his death was only the beginning of greater troubles. You remember her brother Henry." "I remember him when he was at school--a good-natured, high-spirited little fellow, whom every body liked."