mn the poor girl without
seeing her."

"I condemn no one--I judge no one, not even you, Arnold. But I will
not receive that young woman."

"Very well, Clara."

"How shall you live, Arnold?" she asked coldly.

It was the finishing stroke--the dismissal.

"I suppose we shall not marry; but, of course, I am talking as if--"

"As if she was ready to jump into your arms. Go on."

"We shall not marry until I have made some kind of a beginning in my
work. Clara, let us have no further explanation. I understand
perfectly well. But, my dear Clara," he laid his arm upon her neck and
kissed her, "I shall not let you quarrel with me. I owe you too much,
and I love you too well. I am always your most faithful of servants."

"No; till you are married--then--Oh, Arnold! Arnold!"

A less strong-minded woman would have burst into tears. Clara did not.
She got into her carriage and drove home. She spent a miserable
evening and a sleepless night. But she did not cry.

CHAPTER VII.

ON BATTERSEA TERRACE.

If a woman were to choose any period of her life which she pleased,
for indefinite prolongation, she would certainly select that period
which lies between the first perception of the first symptoms--when
she begins to understand that a man has begun to love her--and the day
when he tells her so.

Yet women who look back to this period with so much fondness and
regret forget their little tremors and misgivings--the self-distrust,
the hopes and fears, the doubts and perplexities, which troubled this
time. For although it is acknowledged, and has been taught by all
philosophers from King Lemuel and Lao-Kiun downward, that no greater
prize can be gained by any man than the love of a good woman, which is
better than a Peerage--better than a Bonanza mine--better than Name
and Fame, Kudos and the newspaper paragraph, and is arrived at by much
less exertion, being indeed the special gift of the gods to those
they love; yet all women perfectly understand the other side to this
great truth--namely, that no greater happiness can fall to any woman
than the love of a good man. So that, in all the multitudinous and
delightful courtships which go on around us, and in our midst, there
is, on both sides, both with man and with maid, among those who truly
reach to the right understanding of what this great thing may mean, a
continual distrust of self, with humility and anxiety. And when, as
sometimes happens, a girl has been brough