to answer him. "I
spoke of my own heart," said she: "I sometimes feel that it has grown
very old."

"Alice, that is hardly cheering to me."

"You have come to me too quickly, George, and do not reflect how much
there is that I must remember. You have said that bygones should be
bygones. Let them be so, at any rate as far as words are concerned.
Give me a few months in which I may learn,--not to forget them, for
that will be impossible,--but to abstain from speaking of them."

There was something in her look as she spoke, and in the tone of her
voice that was very sad. It struck him forcibly, but it struck him
with anger rather than with sadness. Doubtless her money had been
his chief object when he offered to renew his engagement with her.
Doubtless he would have made no such offer had she been penniless,
or even had his own need been less pressing. But, nevertheless, he
desired something more than money. The triumph of being preferred to
John Grey,--of having John Grey sent altogether adrift, in order that
his old love might be recovered, would have been too costly a luxury
for him to seek, had he not in seeking it been able to combine
prudence with the luxury. But though his prudence had been undoubted,
he desired the luxury also. It was on a calculation of the combined
advantage that he had made his second offer to his cousin. As he
would by no means have consented to proceed with the arrangement
without the benefit of his cousin's money, so also did he feel
unwilling to dispense with some expression of her love for him, which
would be to him triumphant. Hitherto in their present interview there
had certainly been no expression of her love.

"Alice," he said, "your greeting to me is hardly all that I had
hoped."

"Is it not?" said she. "Indeed, George, I am sorry that you should
be disappointed; but what can I say? You would not have me affect a
lightness of spirit which I do not feel?"

"If you wish," said he, very slowly,--"if you wish to retract your
letter to me, you now have my leave to do so."

What an opportunity was this of escape! But she had not the courage
to accept it. What girl, under such circumstances, would have had
such courage? How often are offers made to us which we would almost
give our eyes to accept, but dare not accept because we fear the
countenance of the offerer? "I do not wish to retract my letter,"
said she, speaking as slowly as he had spoken; "but I wish to be left
awhile, th