"What! if you did not feel rightly, Edward?"

"It may be a great fault in me, but I fear I do."

"You do yourself injustice, Edward.

We

have agreed that we will be faithful friends to each other, not flatterers."

"True, Amy; but you forget the peculiar trials of my case; to have lost my property just at this moment, when I am sure of your love. But for my misfortunes, we might be married, as well as Fanny and Roberts. O, Amy, I have not felt like a Christian this evening; I have been envious of the happiness of my friend."

“Have faith — have patience; all will yet be well."

"It must be so long before I can possess such a property as will satisfy your father's ambition; perhaps never.”

"Should not this uncertainty about the future teach us to make the most of the present?"

"I cannot be so very reasonable as you are, Amy."

"Do not mistake me, Edward; do not think me cold, because, when I am with you, I am too happy to think of the future.

Our love is a present, enduring reality, into which the spirit of fear cannot enter; is it not, Edward?”

“You are right, Amy, and I have been wrong. Yours is the true, the heavenly love all hoping, all trusting. You shall help me to subdue the spirit of complaint. You have already put a better heart into me."

In man's impatience under suffering, is there not something of that sense of superiority which was the origin of the slavish state in which woman has existed for ages, and to which she is still doomed in many parts of the world? When exposed to the same trials, do we not often see the woman enduring with a quiet patience, a cheerful courage; while lordly man either submits with a cold and haughty calmness, or fiercely resists and complains, as if his chartered rights were infringed. This gives rise to a fault in woman, which deserves still more to be reprobated; it is that of flattering this weakness in man, and, by that means, gaining by art that ascendancy over him, which he finds so much self-complacency in thinking he possesses over her by nature. In both sexes, is an unrighteous love of dominion. Amy equally detested any approach to the character

it

of tyrant or slave. nor be flattered.

She would neither flatter It was this noble independence of soul that first attracted Edward; and, although his self-love was sometimes tried by it, yet did he always love and honor her the more for her faithful allegiance to his as well as her own principle of action.

After a silence of some minutes, Edward resumed the conversation.

"I know, Amy, that you will have patience with me; but there is something almost intolerable in the state in which I am now placed. Every one appears to me to look differently upon me, since I lost my property, except you; and the only way in which I can win back their regard the only way in which I can win even you, Amy, is by gaining money. How I hate the very word! and yet, never before did I so desire the thing."

"There is another and a far more just view of your case, Edward."

"What is it, Amy?"

"Has not your failure discovered to you, as well as to me, that we are bound together by stronger ties than prosperity could have formed? Do we not suffer together? Did you not tell my father that you were satisfied?"

"And I ought to be satisfied. I asked -I wanted nothing of him but his daughter, when I can maintain her. But this odious money, Amy."

"Come! you must not quarrel so with money, at the same time that you say that with it you can possess my hand. This is not very gallant in you, Edward. I shall expect you to think that money-making is very pleasant work, for my sake. I only wish I could help you, and do something myself; but, on the contrary, here I am doomed to uselessness, because my father is a rich man."

"You are right, Amy; you are right, and I am all wrong. You shall not see me so weak again. I will learn to love to make bargains; accounts, price currents, invoices, shall be dear to me; and all the cheating I see, I will forgive, for your sake."

A few days afterwards, Edward informed Amy that he had made a final settlement with his creditors. His affairs had turned out better than he had feared. He had been able to pay seventy-five cents on a dollar, and had received a full release from all further claims. He then told her that he had resolved to accept a very advantageous proposal, which had been made to him, to go to

China; that he might be gone two years, perhaps more; but that he trusted that he should return with such a fortune as would enable them to be married.

Poor Amy! It was now Edward's turn to teach resignation and hope. He who makes a brave and cheerful sacrifice to duty, always seems to acquire a new power of endurance a self-supporting energy, that directly transforms him into the comforter of those for whom he devotes himself.

"And it is for me, Edward, that you are leaving your country, your home; it is for me that you are risking your health, your life."

"It is for myself," replied Edward. "I have no true happiness, till you are my wife. It is for myself; for I have no home, till you are its guardian angel."

When Edward told Mr. Weston of his determination, he expressed his approbation in more decided terms than it was his habit to do. "It seems," he said, "to promise well. Some of our first men have made

their fortunes in this way. Your engagement to my daughter is unfortunate."

Poor Edward writhed under the torture of listening to this and a few more remarks of