“Ay, happy, Lucy!  That is the word.  You must not be permitted to choose a lot in life, in which the chances are not in favor of your happiness.”

“I look not for that now, Ralph,” was her reply, and with such hopeless despondency visible in her face as she spoke, that, with a deeper interest, taking her hand, he again urged the request she had already so recently denied.

“And why not, my sweet sister?  Why should you not anticipate happiness as well as the rest of us?  Who has a better right to happiness than the young, the gentle, the beautiful, the good?—­and you are all of these, Lucy!  You have the charms—­the richer and more lasting charms—­which, in the reflective mind, must always awaken admiration!  You have animation, talent, various and active—­sentiment, the growth of truth, propriety, and a lofty aim—­no flippancy, no weak vanity—­and a gentle beauty, that woos while it warms.”

Her face became very grave, as she drew back from him.

“Nay, my sweet Lucy! why do you repulse me?  I speak nothing but the truth.”

“You mock me!—­I pray you, mock me not.  I have suffered much, Mr. Colleton—­very much, in the few last years of my life, from the sneer, and the scorn, and the control of others!  But I have been taught to hope for different treatment, and a far gentler estimate.  It is ill in you to take up the speech of smaller spirits, and when the sufferer is one so weak, so poor, so very wretched as I am now!  I had not looked for such scorn from you!”

Ralph was confounded.  Was this caprice?  He had never seen any proof of the presence of such an infirmity in her.  And yet, how could he account for those strange words—­that manner so full of offended pride?  What had he been saying?  How had she misconceived him?  He took her hand earnestly in his own.  She would have withdrawn it; but no!—­he held it fast, and looked pleadingly into her face, as he replied:—­

“Surely, Lucy, you do me wrong!  How could you think that I would design to give you pain?  Do you really estimate me by so low a standard, that my voice, when it speaks in praise and homage, is held to be the voice of vulgar flattery, and designing falsehood?”

“Oh, no, Ralph! not that—­anything but that!”

“That I should sneer at you, Lucy—­feel or utter scorn—­you, to whom I owe so much!  Have I then been usually so flippant of speech—­a trifler—­when we have spoken together before?—­the self-assured fopling, with fancied superiority, seeking to impose upon the vain spirit and the simple confidence?  Surely, I have never given you cause to think of me so meanly!”

“No! no! forgive me!  I know not what I have said!  I meant nothing so unkind—­so unjust!”

“Lucy, your esteem is one of my most precious desires.  To secure it, I would do much—­strive earnestly—­make many sacrifices of self.  Certainly, for this object, I should be always truthful.”