of all this, and no doubt did think of it, before you
accepted him. You have no right now to make him wretched."

"And, therefore, I will not make him poor."

"Poor, poor! How fearfully afraid we are of poverty! Is there nothing
worse than poverty, what you call poverty--poverty that cannot have
its gowns starched above once a week?" Caroline stared at her, but
Adela went on. "Broken hearts are not half so bad as that; nor
daily tears and disappointed hopes, nor dry, dull, dead, listless
despondency without one drop of water to refresh it! All that is as
nothing to a well-grounded apprehension as to one's larder! Never
marry till you are sure that will be full, let the heart be ever so
empty."

"Adela!"

"For others there may be excuse," she continued, thinking then, as
always, of that scene at West Putford, and defending to herself him
whom to herself she so often accused; "but for you there can be none.
If you drive him from you now, whatever evil may befall him will lie
like a weight of lead upon your heart. If you refuse him now, he is
not the man to take it quietly and wait."

"I can live without him."

"Yes; it is your pride to say so; and I believe you could live
without him. But I think too well of you to believe that you could
live happily without him; nor will he be happy without you. You will
both be proud, and stony-hearted, and wretched--stony-hearted at
least in appearance; not fortunate enough to become so in reality."

"Why, Adela, one would think that you yourself were the victim of
some passion nipped in its bud by a cruel prudence."

"And so I am." As she said this she rose from her seat as though she
intended, standing there before her companion, to go on with her
impassioned warning. But the effect was too much for her; and falling
down on her knees, with her face buried in her hands, she rested them
on the sofa, and gave way to sobs and tears.

Caroline was of course much shocked, and did what she could to
relieve her; but Adela merely begged that she might be left to
herself one minute. "One minute," she said, plaintively, in a voice
so different from that she had used just now; "one minute and I shall
be well again. I have been very foolish, but never say anything about
it; never, never, not to any one; promise me, promise me, Caroline.
Dear Caroline, you do promise me? No one knows it; no one must know
it."

Caroline did promise; but with a natural curiosity she wanted to know
the