comfort it was to talk things over--but, then, whom could I talk them over with? Law, who thinks it best not to think, never to mind--but sometimes one is obliged to mind: or Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, whom I cannot say everything to---- or;--Mr. Ridsdale!” said Lottie, in alarm--“pray, pray forgive me if I have bored you. I have been pouring out everything to you. I never thought--I did not intend----” “Don’t tell me that,” he said. “I hoped you did intend to confide in me, to trust to my sympathy. Who can be so much interested? to whom can it be so important----?” He leaned forward closer to her, and Lottie instinctively drew away from him a hairs-breadth; but she thought that quite natural too, as natural as that she should be able to speak to him better than to anyone else. They had both made the whole avowal of their hearts in saying these words; but it had not been done in words which frightened either or changed their position towards each other. Meanwhile she was content enough, quieted by the sense of leaning her trouble upon him, while he was gradually growing into agitation. Lottie had got all her emergency required--his sympathy, his support, the understanding that was so dear to her. After all her trouble she had a moment of ease; her heart was no longer sore, but soothed with the balm of his tender pity and indignation. But that which calmed Lottie threw Rollo into ever-increasing agitation. A man who has said so much as that to a girl, especially to one who is in difficulty and trouble, is bound even to himself to say more. The crisis began for him where for her it momentarily ended. To love her and as good as tell her so, to receive, thus ingenuously given, that confession of instinctive reliance upon him which was as good as a betrayal of her love; and to let her go and say nothing more--could a man do that and yet be a man? Rollo was not a man who had done right all the days of his life. He had been in very strange company, and had gone through many an adventure; but he was a man whom vice had never done more than touch. Even among people of bad morals he had not known how to abandon the instincts of honour; and in such an emergency what was he to do? Words came thronging to his lips, but his mind was distracted with his own helplessness. What had he to offer? how could he marry? he asked himself with a kind of despair. Yet something must be thought of, something suggested. “Lottie,” he said after that strange pause--“Lottie--I cannot call you Miss Despard any more, as if I were a stranger. Lottie, you know very well that I love you. I am as poor as you are, but I cannot bear this. You must trust to me for everything--you must--Lottie, you are not afraid to trust yourself to me--you don’t doubt me?” he cried. His mind was driven wildly from one side to another. Marry! how could he marry in his circumstances? Was it possible that there was anything else that would answer the purpose, any