l enable her to send her own
clothes to a laundress or hire a cook who can make pastry; but it is not
fair to ask her to wash the family's blankets or to boil potatoes for a
pig. Probably her friends would think her lucky in marrying a curate or
a dispensary doctor with one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and
the prospect of one-third as much again after a while. But Hyacinth
remembered that he was poorer than any curate. He determined to put the
matter plainly before Marion without delay.

The Rectory door was opened for him by Elsie Beecher, and, in spite of
her wondering protests, Hyacinth walked into the dining-room and asked
that Marion should be sent to him. The room was empty, as he expected.
He stood and waited for her, deriving faint comfort and courage from the
threadbare carpet, patched tablecloth, and poor crazy chairs. They were
strange properties for a scene with possibilities of deep romance in it,
but they made his confession of poverty easier.

Marion entered at last and stood beside him. He neither took her hand
nor looked at her.

'When I told you to-day that I loved you,' he said, 'I ought to have
told you that I am very poor.'

'I know it,' she said.

'But I am poorer even than you know. I am not in Mr. Quinn's employment
any more. I have no settled income, and only a prospect of earning a
very small one.' He paused. 'I shall have to go away from Ballymoy. I
must live in Dublin. I do not think it is fair to ask you to marry me. I
shall have no more to live upon than----'

She moved a step nearer to him and laid her hand on his arm.

'Look at me,' she said.

He raised his eyes to her face, and saw again there, as he had seen in
church, the wonderful shining of love, which is stronger than all things
and holds poverty and hardship cheap.

'Keep looking at me still,' she said. 'Now tell me: Do you really think
it matters that you are poor? Do you think I care whether you have much
or little? Tell me.'

He could not answer her, although he knew that there was only one answer
to her question.

'Do you think that I love money? Do you doubt that I love you?'

Her voice sunk almost to a whisper as she spoke, and her eyes fell from
looking into his. Just as when he kissed her in the church, she flushed
suddenly, but this time she did not try to escape from him. Instead she
clung to his arm, and hid her face against his shoulder. He put his arms
round her and held her close.

'I know,' he sa