ld to me, and I will accept the unpopularity of closing
it. I ask only to serve you, and inhabit your daily life, like one of
these negroes you are kind to, and if I am ever harsh to you, Miss
Vesta, I swear to surrender you to your family, and depart forever."

Vesta shook her head.

"There is no separation but one," she said, "when Heaven has been called
down to the marriage solemnity. It is before that act that we must
consider everything. How could I make you happy? My own happiness I will
dismiss. Yours must then comprehend mine. Kindness might make me
grateful, but gratitude will not satisfy your love."

"Yes," exclaimed Milburn, chasing up his advantage with tremulous ardor;
"the long famine of my heart will be thankful for a dry crust and a cup
of ice. Here at the fireside let me sit and warm, and hear the rustle of
your dress, and grow in heavenly sensibility. You will redeem a savage,
you will save a soul!"

"It is not the price I must pay to do this, I would have you consider,
sir," Vesta replied, with her attention somewhat arrested by his
intensity; "it is the price you are paying--your self-respect,
perhaps--by the terms on which you obtain me. It may never be known out
of this family that I married you for the sake of my father and mother.
But how am I to prevent you from remembering it, especially when you say
that I am the sum of your purest wishes? If your interest would consume
after you obtained me, we might, at least, be indifferent; but if it
grew into real love, would you not often accuse yourself?"

Meshach Milburn sat down, cast his large brown eyes upon the floor, and
listened in painful reflection.

"You cannot conceive I have had any real love for you?" he exclaimed,
dubiously.

"You have seen me, and desired me for your wife; that is all," said
Vesta, "that I can imagine. Lawless power could do that anywhere. To be
an obedient wife is the lot of woman; but love, such as you have some
glimmering of, is a mystic instinct so mutual, so gladdening, yet so
free, that the captivity you set me in to make me sing to you will
divide us like the wires of a cage."

"There is no bird I ever caught," said Meshach Milburn, "that did not
learn to trust me. Your comparison does not, therefore, discourage me.
And you have already sung for me, the saddest day of your life!"

A slight touch of nature in this revelation of her strange suitor called
Vesta's attention to the study of him again. With her