"I must prepare you, Millie, darling, for what I clearly foresee. Martin is destroying himself, and I shall not long survive him. Oh, Millie, it's a terrible thing to love a weak man as I love your father. I love him so that his course is killing me. It could not be otherwise, for I am much to blame. Don't interrupt me; I am speaking these bitter words for your ultimate good. Your life is before you--" "Mamma, how can my life be before me if you die broken-hearted?" "Because you are young. You know that it would add tenfold bitterness to my already overflowing cup if I saw no chance for you, Belle, and the little ones. You may soon have to be mother and sister both. I forewarn you, because, as Roger says, you are strong as well as gentle, and you must not just drift helplessly toward we know not what. Oh, Millie, my poor crushed heart must have one consolation before it is at rest. Roger is not, and never will be, a weak man. It is not in his nature to give way to fatal habits. I, too, with a woman's eye, have seen his deep, strong affection for you, and with a mother's jealous love I have studied his character. He is a young giant, Millie, whom you unconsciously awoke to manhood. He comes of a sturdy, practical race, and unites to their shrewdness a chivalric Southern heart and large brain. He doesn't begin to know, himself, how much of a man he is, but the experience of life will fast develop him. He is one who will master circumstances, and not be molded by them. Obstacles will only stimulate his will. Your prejudice and dislike have not made him falter a moment. In the heart of a girl like you, Millie, I truly believe that a new love for such a man will surely spring up, and grow and strengthen with each succeeding year, and you would be worthy of him. You could make him happy, and eventually add greatly to his success. He is sure to become eminent, and be burdened with many large affairs, and the home you could make for him would be a refuge and a resting-place from which he would go out daily, strong and refreshed. Let his friends say what they please at first. He has his own career to make, and in his choice of you he has shown how unerring and sound his instincts are, and you can prove them so, and will, I think, when time has given your morbid and unhappy heart its healthful tone. Mrs. Wheaton has done much work at his uncle's house, and Mrs. Atwood talks to her quite freely. Mrs. Wheaton says they are wealthy, although they live so plainly, and that Mr. Atwood, Roger's uncle, is wonderfully taken with the young man, and means to give him a chance to climb among the highest, if he continues to be so steady and persevering. Of course you know that Roger will never be anything else than steady. And Mrs. Wheaton also says that Mr. Atwood will, no doubt, leave everything to him, for he has no children." "I am sorry you have told me this," sighed Mildred; "it would have been hard enough at best, but I should feel almost mercenary now."