cipher out a conclusion by striking a
logical balance. It naturally occurred to Isa that what so good and wise
a person had found beneficial, might also prove an assistance to her. So
she wrote down the following:

"REASONS IN FAVOR.

"1. Mr. Lurton is one of the most excellent men in the world. I have a
very great respect and a sincere regard for him. If he were my husband, I
do not think I should ever find anything to prevent me loving him.

"2. The life of a minister's wife would open to me opportunities to do
good. I could at least encourage and sustain him.

"3. It seems to be providential that the offer should come at this time,
when I am free from all obligations that would interfere with it, and
when I seem to have no other prospect.

"REASONS AGAINST.

"1."--

But here she stopped. There was nothing to be said against Mr. Lurton, or
against her accepting the offered happiness. She would then lead the
quiet, peaceful life of a village-minister's wife who does her duty to
her husband and her neighbors. Her generous nature found pleasure in the
thought of all the employments that would fill her heart and hands. How
much better it would be to have a home, and to have others to work for,
than to lead the life of a stranger in other people's houses! And then
she blushed, and was happy at the thought that there would be children's
voices in the house--little stockings in the basket on a Saturday
night--there would be the tender cares of the mother. How much better was
such a life than a lonely one!

It was not until some hours of such thinking--of more castle-building
than the sober-spirited girl had done in her whole life before--that she
became painfully conscious that in all this dreaming of her future as the
friend of the parishioners and the house-mother, Lurton himself was a
figure in the background of her thoughts. He did not excite any
enthusiasm in her heart. She took up her paper; she read over again the
reasons why she ought to love Lurton. But though reason may chain Love
and forbid his going wrong, all the logic in the world can not make him
go where he will not. She had always acted as a most rational creature.
Now, for the first time, she could not make her heart go where she would.
Love in such cases seems held back by intuition, by a logic so high and
fine that its terms can not be stated. Love has a balance-sheet in which
all is invisible except the totals. I have noticed that practical and