life of toil and strife to be an unloved and unloving old age? Was the position which he had acquired to benefit no one but himself, and to die out with him? Was the wealth which he had amassed to be filtered away into dirty channels, or left for the benefit of charities? If these questions were to be answered in the negative, where could he find such a helpmate as Marian, where could he dream of looking for such another? His conduct could scarcely be characterised as selfish, he thought, if after the life of work and anxiety which he had passed, he tried to render its latter portion peaceful and happy; and that, he felt, was only to be done by his marriage with Marian. So much for himself; but how would it affect others? Marian, first? Mr. Creswell was so true and so honourable a man that even in a case like the present, where the interest of his future was at stake, he would not have used an argument in the firm basis of which he did not himself believe. In pleading his cause to Marian, he had somewhat enlarged upon the responsibility laid on her in regard to her mother--responsibility which, he argued, would be considerably lightened, if not entirely removed, by her acceptance of the position which he offered her. He believed this firmly, setting it down as an undoubted gain to Marian, who would also have position, wealth, a home, and a protector. What on the other side--what, as they said in business, per contra--what would she lose? He hoped, nothing. To many girls, to most girls, a husband old enough to be their father would have been in the highest degree objectionable; but Marian was so different to any girls he had ever seen. She was so staid, so decorous, so old-fashioned; her life had been one of such quietude and earnestness; she had always been associated with people so much older than herself. And then she had never had any love-affair! Mr. Creswell thanked Heaven for that. He could not fancy anything worse than playing the part of Auld Robin Gray in the ballad, and being received and accepted for the sake of his money, and, more than that, causing the rejection of a poorer suitor. That would be too dreadful! No. Marian had not been thrown in the way of that kind of thing; her father had neither entertained company nor taken her into society, and there was no one in the village, Mr. Creswell thought with a grave smile, who would have ventured to uplift his eyes towards her. He should not expect from her any romantic worship, any girlish devotion, but, at all events, she would come to him heart-whole, without any remains of previous attachments or bygone passions.