a younger and a more eloquent man, to persuade you the better. Be glad for your own; I want you for my wife. In all the world I don't think I have a single friend-not a man, woman, or child to whom I can tell whatever I have on my mind. When you are struggling, it doesn't matter; but when you are rich and comfortable, you want a companion. It is not good-Scripture warrant-for a man to be alone. When I sit at home, after a dinner that a duchess—yes, a duchess would enjoy, I cannot drink a bottle of port as I used to four years ago, because I must consider my nerves for the next day's work. I hardly can smoke now. I don't care

to read.

And thus it is that I want a wife to talk

to me. Be my wife, Marion."

She shook her head again silently.

"I will be kind to you; I will indeed. You shall never hear a harsh word from me. I will consider your wishes in everything; you shall have the direction and ordering of the whole house. I shall be contented to make money for you to spend, provided I can only see you my wife."

He began to tick off on his fingers the special

advantages she might derive from a union with himself.

"Look at yourself, now-toiling and moiling for a miserable pittance, and putting money into other people's hands. What have you had to eat to-day? Next to nothing. Adie told me. You have actually suffered privation-you. What will your work lead to? More misery, more starvation, more wretchedness for you and your sister. I offer to take you-and her-out of it all."

He ticked this off as a telling point, 'and went on again after a moment's consideration. The man was tremendously in earnest; but each sentence jarred upon the girl's nature, and made compliance with his wish the more impossible.

"Adie, now. Do you think it right and proper that she should be living in this style, brought up as she was? She is twenty years of age, as beautiful as Helen of Troy, and full of longings for the good things of the world. Remember that it will be your own fault if she continues to go on like this. Why, I've known girls, out of desperation"-he stopped for a moment—

"do all sorts of things. Marion, think of Adie

before you give me up."

Tick the second.

Then he played what he

thought a stronger card.

"There is your brother Fred. He has been loafing about town for four years, living on your exertions. Now I tell you candidly and honestly that he will never do any work at all. He does not want any. I know the London loafer. Every day makes him fonder of the billiard tables, and less inclined to work. Fred couldn't do any work if he had any to do; it is impossible for him now, even if it was possible for him four years ago. You will have to go on working for him as well as for your sister. You will see him descend lower and lower. He is already at a tolerably low level. You will watch the last pretence of trying for work disappear, and the last scruple at depending upon your exertions; you will see the very last flickering spark of his honour die."

"Dr. Chacomb!"

It was a good blow, and he repeated it, thinking he would drive the nail home.

"You will see the last flickerings of his honour

die out bit by bit. He will lose all that you have admired in him. Well if he does not bring disgrace upon your name. I offer you relief from this infliction. I will myself provide for your brother."

The girl made him no reply, but her head sank lower.

"Gerald is dead," he went on-"of that be very certain. Gerald is either dead or he has forgotten you, and his father, and the past, all of us together. Do you think that he would not have written had he been alive? Do you still believe that on the word of a madman, accepting a wild statement which he never even tried to question or to prove, he would have stayed away for four years, and made no sign? Why, anything might happen. His father's life-Chauncey has got heart disease-hangs upon a thread; the estates might come to me. You might have married some one else. Nonsense! Gerald is dead, or Gerald has ceased to think about you."

"If he has ceased to think about me, that is no reason why I should cease to think about him," said Marion. "If he is dead, let me mourn for him still."

"No, Marion."

He lowered his voice, and

his eyes, under the rolls of fat eyelids, assumed a softer light. "No, Marion, mourn no more. You have had enough of misery and sorrow; let the dead bury the dead. The memory of your father's death must not cloud the whole of your life. There has been too much mourning. Come back to the world, and take your place among the ladies of the world, the sweetest and best of them all. I swear there is no one like you, Marion-no one among the countesses and people-wherever I go. Come out of this dreary and starving den, where you lie hidden and forgotten. Good God! to think that you should dream of going on here, and like this, for ever!"

"Not for ever," said Marion-"not for ever. There is an end appointed."

I

"Yes, and it is appointed by me," said the doctor, with an earnestness which perhaps redeemed the audacity of the statement. "Be my wife, Marion, and all shall be well with you. am hungering and thirsting for you. Come to me, and I will make you happy. and your sister shall be happy.

Come to me,

Come to me,