“You are, Ralph!  I believe you.”

“When I praised you, I did not mean merely to praise.  I sought rather to awaken you to a just appreciation of your own claims upon a higher order of society than that which you can possibly find in this frontier region.  I have spoken only the simple truth of your charms and accomplishments.  I have felt them, Lucy, and paint them only as they are.  Your beauties of mind and person—­”

“Oh, do not, I implore you!”

“Yes, I must, Lucy! though of these beauties I should not have spoken—­should not now speak—­were it not that I feel sure that your superior understanding would enable you to listen calmly to a voice, speaking from my heart to yours, and speaking nothing but a truth which it honestly believes!  And it is your own despondency, and humility of soul, that prompts me thus to speak in your praise.  There is no good reason, Lucy, why you should not be happy—­why fond hearts should not be rejoiced to win your sympathies—­why fond eyes should not look gladly and gratefully for the smiles of yours!  You carry treasures into society, Lucy, which society will everywhere value as beyond price!”

“Ah! why will you, sir—­why, Ralph?—­”

“You must not sacrifice yourself, Lucy.  You must not defraud society of its rights.  In a more refined circle, whose chances of happiness will be more likely to command than yours?  You must go with me and Edith—­go to Carolina.  There you will find the proper homage.  You will see the generous and the noble;—­they will seek you—­honorable gentlemen, proud of your favor, happy in your smiles—­glad to offer you homes and hearts, such as shall be not unworthy of your own.”

The girl heard him, but with no strengthening of self-confidence.  The thought which occurred to her, which spoke of her claims, was that he had not found them so coercive.  But, of course, she did not breathe the sentiment.  She only sighed, and shook her head mournfully; replying, after a brief pause:—­

“I must not hear you, Ralph.  I thank you, I thank Miss Colleton, for the kindness of this invitation, but I dare not accept it.  I can not go with you to Carolina.  My lot is here with my aunt, or where she goes.  I must not desert her.  She is now even more destitute than myself.”

“Impossible!  Why, Lucy, your aunt tells me that she means to continue in this establishment.  How can you reconcile it to yourself to remain here, with the peril of encountering the associations, such as we have already known them, which seem naturally to belong to such a border region.”

“You forget, Ralph, that it was here I met with you,” was the sudden reply, with a faint smile upon her lips.

“Yes; and I was driven here—­by a fate, against my will—­that we should meet, Lucy.  But though we are both here, now, the region is unseemly to both, and neither need remain an hour longer than it is agreeable.  Why should you remain out of your sphere, and exposed to every sort of humiliating peril.”