What say you to the pulpit?"

"The noblest of all employments, Lucy--but it is a heavenly employment
and needs a heavenly spirit. I would not dare to think of that. Try
again--"

"The law? Ah! now I see I have chosen rightly--you will be a lawyer--a
great lawyer, like Mr. Patrick Henry."

"You have spoken, Lucy--and I will do my best to fulfil your prophecy. I
may not be a Patrick Henry--two such men belong not to one age--but I
may at least hew out for myself a place among men, where I may stand
with a man's freedom of thought and action. The very decision has
emancipated me--has emboldened me to speak what a moment since I
scarcely dared to think--nay, turn not from me, beloved--oh how
passionately beloved! Life has now its object for me, Lucy--your
love--for that I will strive--hope--whisper me that I need not
fear--that when I have a right to claim my bride--"

When Edward Houstoun commenced this passionate apostrophe, he had
clasped Lucy's hand, and, overcome by his emotions and her
own--forgetting all but his love--conscious only of a bewildering
joy--she had suffered it to rest for one instant in his clasp. It was
but for one instant--the next, struggling from him as he strove to
retain her, she started to her feet, and stood leaning against the trunk
of the tree that overshadowed them, with her face hidden by her clasped
hands. He rose and drew near, saying, in low, tremulous tones--"Lucy,
what means this?"

"Mr. Houstoun," she exclaimed, removing her hands from her face, and
wringing them in passionate sorrow--"how could you speak those words?"

"Wherefore should I not speak them--are they so terrifying to you,
Lucy?"

"Can they be otherwise, since they must separate us for ever? Think you
that the Lady Houstoun would endure that the creature of her bounty
should become the wife of her son?"

"I asked, Lucy, that you would promise to be mine when I had won a right
to act independently of the Lady Houstoun's opinions."

"Has a son ever a right to act independently of a mother?"

"Is the obedience of a child to be exacted from a man? Is his happiness
ever to be at the mercy of another's prejudices? Does there never come a
period when he may be permitted to judge for himself?"

Edward Houstoun spoke with indignant emphasis.

"Look not so sternly--speak not so angrily," exclaimed Lucy. "I cannot
answer your questions--but my obligations, at least, are
irreversible--they belong to the irrevocable past