ious, and I was still sitting with this strange
epistle in my lap when Mr. Spence arrived. It would be affectation to
say I was greatly surprised, when, after a few moments, he made to me a
confession of his love. From his words of the previous evening, from a
host of little indications which they had recalled to me, and finally
from the jealous suspicions of the unhappy artist, I was not wholly
unprepared for this result. There was nothing in the manner of his
declaration that calls for mention. It was, as he said, a confession
long deferred and struggled against, but he had been mastered at last by
a power stronger than himself. He had come, he said, to make this
acknowledgment of his feelings, no matter what might be the result; for
there was something he must ask me to listen to, which it would be
needful that I should know before he could dare to ask me to become his
wife, or I should be able to answer.

I felt I knew what he was about to say, and was not mistaken. The
question with most young people, he said, was how to find the means upon
which to marry; but in his case those means were already provided, and a
difficulty of a precisely opposite character stood between him and me. I
must have perceived by this time his intense devotion to the system of
philosophy of which he was the chief advocate. He had sacrificed
everything in life to that one end, and he was prepared to do so so long
as he was spared to labor. To practise in every way, so far as was
possible, the principles he professed was the only escape, in his
opinion, from that worst stigma of would-be-reformers,--hypocrisy. Among
the leading obstacles, in his judgment, to a well-ordered life was the
accumulation of property beyond enough to satisfy the common needs and
comforts of life. He had taken the vow of approximate poverty,--not the
extreme obligation of the clerical orders, but a limited, moderate view
in accordance with the views just expressed. In seeking a partner to aid
him with her support and sympathy in the great up-hill struggle to which
he had consecrated his powers, he had wished to make choice of a woman
with but small means, if any; but fate had willed otherwise. Once
already--he said that he desired to conceal nothing--he had offered
himself to a young lady of large property, for whom he felt a deep
attachment. He had asked her, as he was about to ask me, to give herself
to him in return for his love, without her fortune. With that sh