see Mildred once more, although what he would say to her he could not tell.  While there had been no conscious and definite purpose on the part of his parents, they nevertheless had trained him to helplessness in mind and body.  His will was as relaxed as his muscles.  Instead of wise, patient effort to develop a feeble constitution and to educate his mind by systematic courses of study, he had been treated as an exotic all his days.  And yet it had been care without tenderness, or much manifestation of affection.  Hot a thing had been done to develop self-respect or self-reliance.  Even more than most girls, he was made to feel himself dependent on his parents.  He had studied but little; he had read much, but in a desultory way.  Of business and of men’s prompt, keen ways he was lamentably ignorant for one of his years, and the consciousness of this made him shrink from the companionship of his own sex, and begat a reticence whose chief cause was timidity.  His parents’ wealth had been nothing but a curse, and they would learn eventually that while they could shield his person from the roughnesses of the world they could not protect his mind and heart from those experiences which ever demand manly strength and principle.  As a result of their costly system, there were few more pitiable objects in the city than Vinton Arnold as he stole under the cover of night to visit the girl who was hoping—­though more faintly after every day of waiting—­that she might find in him sustaining strength and love in her misfortunes.

But when she saw his white, haggard face and nervous, timid manner, she was almost shocked, and exclaimed, with impulsive sympathy, “Mr. Arnold, you have been ill.  I have done you wrong.”

He did not quite understand her, and was indiscreet enough to repeat, “You have done me wrong, Miss Millie?”

“Pardon me.  Perhaps you do not know that we are in deep trouble.  My father’s firm has failed, and we shall have to give up our home.  Indeed, I hardly know what we shall do.  When in trouble, one’s thoughts naturally turn to one’s friends.  I thought perhaps you would come to see me,” and two tears that she could not repress in her eyes.

“Oh, that I were a man!” groaned Arnold, mentally, and never had human cruelty inflicted a keener pang than did Mildred’s sorrowful face and the gentle reproach implied in her words.

“I—­I have been ill,” he said hesitatingly.  “Miss Millie,” he added impulsively, “you can never know how deeply I feel for you.”

She lifted her eyes questioningly to his face, and its expression was again unmistakable.  For a moment she lost control of her overburdened heart, and bowing her face in her hands gave way to the strong tide of her feelings.  “Oh!” she sobbed, “I have been so anxious and fearful about the future.  People have come here out of curiosity, and others have acted as if they did not care what became of us, if they only obtained the money we owed them.  I did not think that those who were so smiling and friendly a short time since could be so harsh and indifferent.  A thousand times I have thought of that poor ship that I saw the waves beat to pieces, and it has seemed as if it might be our fate.  I suppose I am morbid, and that some way will be provided, but some way is not A way.”