ld has just its
two kinds of suitors,--the one who offers us marriage in a sort of grand
princely fashion, and the other who, beseechingly proclaiming his utter
unworthiness, asks us to wait,--to wait for an uncle or a stepmother's
death; to wait till he has got this place in the colonies, or that
vicarage in Bleakshire; to wait till he has earned fame and honor, and
Heaven knows what; till, in fact, he shall have won a wreath of laurel
for his brows, and we have attained to a false plait for ours!" She
paused a second or two to see if May would speak, but as she continued
silent, Mrs. Morris went on: "There are few stock subjects people are
more eloquent in condemning than what are called long engagements. There
are some dozen of easy platitudes that every one has by heart on this
theme; and yet, if the truth were to be told, it is the waiting is the
best of it,--the marriage is the mistake! That faint little flickering
hope that lighted us on for years and years is extinguished at the
church door, and never relighted after; so that, May, my advice to you
is, never contract a long engagement until you have made up your mind
not to marry at the end of it! My poor, poor child! why are you sobbing
so bitterly? Surely I have said nothing to cause you sorrow?"

May turned away without speaking, but her heaving shoulders betrayed how
intensely she was weeping.

"May _I_ see him,--may _I_ speak with him, May?" said Mrs. Morris,
drawing her arm affectionately around her waist.

"To what end,--with what view?" said the girl, suddenly and almost
haughtily.

"Now that you ask me in that tone, May, I scarcely know. I suppose I
meant to show him how inconsiderate, how impossible his hopes were; that
there was nothing in his station or prospects that could warrant this
presumption. I suppose I had something of this sort on my mind, but I
own to you now, your haughty glance has completely routed all my wise
resolutions."

"Perhaps you speculated on the influence of that peculiar knowledge of
his family history you appear to be possessed of?" said May, with some
pique.

"Perhaps so," was the dry rejoinder.

"And which you do not mean to confide to _me?_" said the girl, proudly.

"I have not said so. So long as you maintained that Mr. Layton was
to you nothing beyond a mere acquaintance, my secret, as you have so
grandly called it, might very well rest in my own keeping. If, however,
the time were come that he should occupy a