hraldom, I would stop you from taking the first step towards it. The
bloom upon your cheek, the mould you are the product of without flaw,
the chaste lady's tastes and thoughts, and inborn strength and joy, are
the work of God's favor to your family for generations. That favor he
continues in laying those family burdens on another's shoulders, to
spare you the toil and care, anxiety and slow decay, that this violent
change of circumstances means. It would be a sin to relapse from this
perfection to that penury."

"I cannot see that honorable poverty would make me less a woman,"
exclaimed Vesta.

"You do not dread poverty because you do not know it," Milburn
continued. "It grows in this region like the old field-pines and little
oaks over a neglected farm. Once there was a court-house settlement on
Dividing Creek, where justice, eloquence, talent, wit, and heroism made
the social centre of two counties, but they moved the court-house and
the forest speedily choked the spot. Now not an echo lingers of that
former glory. You can save your house from being swallowed up in the
forest."

"By marrying the forest hero?" Vesta said, though she immediately
regretted it.

"Yes," Milburn uttered stubbornly, after a pause. "I have met the house
of Custis half-way. I am coming out of the woods as they are going in,
unless the sacrifice be mutual."

"Let us not be personal," Vesta pleaded, with her grace of sorrow; "I
feel that you are a kind man, at least to me, but a poor girl must make
a struggle for herself."

She saw the tears stand instantly in his eyes, and pressed her
advantage:

"Your tears are like the springs we find here, so close under the flinty
sand that nobody would suspect them, but I have seen them trickle out.
Tell me, now, if I would not be happier to take up the burden of my
father and mother, and let us diminish and be frugal, instead of
cowardly flying into the protection of our creditor, by a union which
the world, at least, would pronounce mercenary. My father might come up
again, in some way."

"No, Miss Vesta. Your father can hold no property while any portion of
his debts remains unpaid. The easier way is to show the world that our
union is not mercenary, by trying to love each other. Throughout the
earth marriage is the reparation of ruined families--the short path, and
the most natural one, too. Ruth was poor kin, but she turned from the
harvest stubble that made her beautiful feet bleed, to cr