shall be) the first perfect expression of the powers of mankind--I

shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and

natural incredulity. To what can you aspire--fame, riches, power,

the charm of youth, the dear-bought wisdom of age--that I shall not

be able to afford you in perfection? Do not deceive yourself. I

already excel you in every human gift but one: when that gift also

has been restored to me you will recognise your master.'

Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to

myself; and bidding me consult reason, and not girlish fancies, he

withdrew. I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found

me still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my

hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions. Late in the

evening he returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain

irritable tremor, bade me rise and sup. 'Is it possible,' he

added, 'that I have been deceived in your courage? A cowardly girl

is no fit mate for me.'

I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears

besought him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that

my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and

character I was his hopeless and derisible inferior.

'Why, certainly,' he replied. 'I know you better than yourself;

and I am well enough acquainted with human nature to understand

this scene. It is addressed to me,' he added with a smile, 'in my

character of the still untransformed. But do not alarm yourself

about the future. Let me but attain my end, and not you only,

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