completed. I knew the business to be affluent and thriving. The income
derived from it enabled my mother to live luxuriously. _Half the sum
would afford every wished-for comfort to my Anna, and much less would
enable us at once to marry_. Here was the rock on which I went to
pieces--here was the giddy light that blinded me to all
considerations--here was the sophistry that made all other reasoning dull
and valueless. I did not stop to enquire what movement of feeling could
operate so generously upon my uncle. If an unfavourable suggestion forced
itself upon me, it was expelled at once; and persuasion of the purity of
his motives was too easy, where my wish was father to the thought. If I
remained at college, years might elapse before our union. _Now,
immediately_, if I accepted this unlooked-for offer--she was mine, and a
home, such as in other circumstances I could never hope to give her, was
ready for her reception! I could think of nothing else, but I beheld in
the unexpected good--the outstretched hand of Providence. Full of my
delight, I communicated the intelligence to Anna; but very different was
its effect on her. She read the letter, and looked at me as if she wished
to read the most hidden of my secret wishes.

"'What have you thought of doing, then?' she asked.

"'Accepting the proposal, Anna,' I replied, 'with your consent.'

"'Never with that,' she answered almost solemnly. 'My lips shall never bid
you turn from the course which you have chosen, and to which you have been
called. You do not require wealth--you have said so many times--and I am
sure it is not necessary for your happiness.'

"'I think not of myself, dear Anna,' I replied. 'I have more than enough
for my own wants. It is for your sake that I would accept their offer, and
become richer than we can ever be if I refuse it. Our marriage now depends
upon a hundred things--is distant at the best, and may never be. The
moment that I consent to this arrangement, you are mine for ever.'

"'Warton,' she said, more seriously than ever, 'I am yours. You have my
heart, and I have engaged to give you, when you ask it, this poor hand. In
any condition of life--I am yours. But I tell you that I never can
deliberately ask you to resign the hopes which we have cherished--with, as
we have believed, the approbation and the blessing of our God. Your line
of duty is, as I conceive it--marked. Whilst you proceed, steadily and
with a simple mind--come what may, yo