ished, he continued to walk up and down the room, looking
very careworn and gloomy.

Miss Bell remained on the sofa, thoughtfully regarding him. At last, she
rose up and took his hand in hers, as she used to when he was a boy, and
walking beside him, said, "The more I reflect upon it, the more necessary I
regard it that you should tell this girl and her parents your real position
before you marry her. Throw away concealment, make a clean breast of it!
you may not be rejected when they find her heart is so deeply interested.
If you marry her with this secret hanging over you, it will embitter your
life, make you reserved, suspicious, and consequently ill-tempered, and
destroy all your domestic happiness. Let me persuade you, tell them ere it
be too late. Suppose it reached them through some other source, what would
they then think of you?"

"Who else would tell them? Who else knows it? You, you," said he
suspiciously--"_you_ would not betray me! I thought you loved me, Aunt
Ada."

"Clarence, my dear boy," she rejoined, apparently hurt by his hasty and
accusing tone, "you _will_ mistake me--I have no such intention. If they
are never to learn it except through _me_, your secret is perfectly safe.
Yet I must tell you that I feel and think that the true way to promote her
happiness and your own, is for you to disclose to them your real position,
and throw yourself upon their generosity for the result."

Clarence pondered for a long time over Miss Bell's advice, which she again
and again repeated, placing it each time before him in a stronger light,
until, at last, she extracted from him a promise that he would do it. "I
know you are right, Aunt Ada," said he; "I am convinced of that--it is a
question of courage with me. I know it would be more honourable for me to
tell her now. I'll try to do it--I will make an effort, and summon up the
courage necessary--God be my helper!"

"That's a dear boy!" she exclaimed, kissing him affectionately; "I know you
will feel happier when it is all over; and even if she should break her
engagement, you will be infinitely better off than if it was fulfilled and
your secret subsequently discovered. Come, now," she concluded, "I am going
to exert my old authority, and send you to bed; tomorrow, perhaps, you may
see this in a more hopeful light."

Two days after this, Clarence was again in New York, amid the heat and dust
of that crowded, bustling city. Soon, after his arrival, he dressed