ful! I cannot
understand why such a man as you should want to make me your wife."

"Because I love you better than all the others; simply that. That
reason, and that only, justifies a man in wanting to marry a girl."
What a good fellow he was, and how flattering were his words! Did he
not deserve what he wanted, even though it could not be given without
a sacrifice? But yet she did not love him. As she looked at him again
she could not there recognise her staff. As she looked at him she was
more than ever convinced that that other staff ought to be her staff.
"May I come again,--after a month, say?" he asked, when there had
been another short period of silence.

"No, no. Why should you trouble yourself? I am not worth it."

"It is for me to judge of that, Miss Rowley."

"All the same, I know that I am not worth it. And I could not tell
you to do that."

"Then I will wait, and come again without your telling me."

"Oh, Mr. Glascock, I did not mean that; indeed I did not. Pray do not
think that. Take what I say as final. I like you more than I can say;
and I feel a gratitude to you that I cannot express,--which I shall
never forget. I have never known any one who has seemed to be so good
as you. But-- It is just what I said before." And then she fairly
burst into tears.

"Miss Rowley," he said, very slowly, "pray do not think that I want
to ask any question which it might embarrass you to answer. But my
happiness is so greatly at stake; and, if you will allow me to say
so, your happiness, too, is so greatly concerned, that it is most
important that we should not come to a conclusion too quickly. If I
thought that your heart were vacant I would wait patiently. I have
been thinking of you as my possible wife for weeks past,--for months
past. Of course you have not had such thoughts about me." As he said
this she almost loved him for his considerate goodness. "It has
sometimes seemed to me odd that girls should love men in such a
hurry. If your heart be free, I will wait. And if you esteem me, you
can see, and try whether you cannot learn to love me."

"I do esteem you."

"It depends on that question, then?" he said, slowly.

She sat silent for fully a minute, with her hands clasped; and then
she answered him in a whisper. "I do not know," she said.

He also was silent for a while before he spoke again. He ceased to
poke with his stick, and got up from his chair, and stood a little
apart from her, not looking a