“I am rich.”  These words of Mr. Burton were constantly recurring to her mind.  It was in vain that she turned from the idea presented with them:  it grew more and more distinct each moment.  Yes, there was a way of relief opened for her mother, of safety for the family, and Miriam saw it plainly, yet shuddered as she looked, and closed her eyes, like one about to leap from a fearful height.

Hour after hour Miriam lay awake, pondering the new aspect which things had assumed, and gazing down the fearful abyss into which, in a spirit of self-devotion, she was seeking to find the courage to leap.

“I am rich.”  Ever and anon these words sounded in her ears.  As the wife of Burton, she could at once lift her mother out of her present unhappy situation.  Thus, before the hour of midnight came and went, she thought.  He had offered her his hand.  She might accept the offer, on condition of his settling an income upon her mother.

This the tempter whispered in her ears, and she hearkened, in exquisite pain, to the suggestion.

When Edith awoke on the next morning, Miriam slept soundly by her side; but Edith, observed that her face was pale and troubled, and that tears were on her cheeks.  At breakfast time, she did not appear at the table; and when her mother sent to her room she returned for answer that she was not very well.  The whole of the day she spent in her chamber, and, during all the time, was struggling against the instinctive repulsion felt towards the man who had made her an offer of marriage.

At supper time, she reappeared at the table with a calm, yet sad face.  As she was passing from the dining room after tea, Burton came to her side and whispered—­

“Can I have a word with you in the parlour, Miriam?”

The young girl neither looked up nor spoke, but moved along by his side, and descended with him to the parlour, where they were alone.

“Miriam,” said Burton, as he placed himself by her side on the sofa, “have you thought seriously of what I said last evening?  Can you reciprocate the ardent sentiments I expressed?”

“Oh, sir!” returned Miriam, looking up artlessly in his face, “I am too young to listen to words like these.”

“You are a woman, Miriam,” replied Burton, earnestly—­“a lovely woman, with a heart overflowing with pure affections.  Deeply have you interested my feelings from the first; and now I ask you to be mine.  As I was going to say last evening, I am rich, and will surround you with every comfort and elegance that money can obtain.  Dearest Miriam, say that you will accept the hand I now offer you.”

“My mother will never consent,” said the trembling girl, after a long pause.

“Your mother is in trouble.  I have long seen that,” remarked Mr. Burton, “and have long wanted to advise and befriend her.  Put it in my power to do so, and then ask for her what you will.”

This was touching the right key, and Burton saw it in a moment.