."

I looked an assent and she continued:

"He thinks that he might like me so well that he would wish me near him
for ever. But he does not know that I cannot let him say this to me. It
would be hard to make him understand me; he never could. And then if he
should know me very well, it would be all wrong. I love my Louis Robert,
and he is waiting on the hills for me. Yes, my dear Emily, he waits for
me there. Did he not say so when he died, and will he not come for me
some day when I shall be a little more weary, and this beating heart
grows colder? He says he will and I am always with him in my thoughts.
It almost hurts me to live at all. Can you see, Emily, can you know how
it is because I need you all _so_ much that I must stay with you?
Professor Benton has a good heart, but it feels cold to me. His art
obscures from him all else; he can love no one as he loves a picture.
Now you will promise me, no not with words--I would only feel your arm
around me, and with my hand in yours feel you are my trusted one--my
soul friend and my great help."

Silence was ill suited to my feelings at that moment. I gathered her
gentle form to me, and held her tight while those ever ready tears of
sympathy filled my eyes full, and I spoke honestly when I said:

"I don't care a fig for Mr. Benton, and if he troubles you I will send
him back to Chicago, and I wish he had never come at all."

"Oh! oh! do not say it; I shall fear to have you know my heart, it makes
you rebellious. It is well that he came, as your brother needs him, and
you do wrong to say such words. Wait, Emily, keep quiet, you are like a
wind when your thoughts are stirred, and time, my love, will help you to
make your hand strong, and your heart also. It is on a full tide and
with a steady wind that vessels find the sea, while changeful blasts
will shipwreck them, and then cast their wrecks upon the shore. And so
it is with mortals; we have to keep saying, wait! while we pray to be
guided aright."

"I am always running off the track, Clara, I know; teach me to know
myself and let me help you; you are so different; I shall never be like
you," I said.

"And you do not wish to be, I hope," was her reply.

"I would like more of your quiet spirit, but that belongs to you, and if
I wait and work hard to do it, I shall always be upsetting what I wish
to do, and plaguing others instead of helping--" Mother came in and our
talk was at an end.

CHAPTER VIII.