stand among prosperous merchants. So, my love, a cottage, simply furnished, would content you? "With you for its occupant, Frank.” "Now, dearest, after we had, as we thought, finished all our accounts, we received a sum of six hundred dollars, which we had given up as lost. My share is three hundred. This would have been but a drop in the vast ocean of mercantile life, but to a poor man like me, it will be a valuable aid. I can hire a neat little cottage, and furnish it very well, that is, for a clerk. I cannot, of course, have an establishment like your father's. My salary will furnish us with the means of comfortable living. Say, Marian, are you willing to share my lot?" "How many times, my dear Frank, have I told you so? Why do you so continually ask me ?" "Ah, Marian, are you indeed willing to live as a poor man's wife, to make sacrifices for my sake ?" "With you, my dear friend, as I have repeatedly said, I shall regard all these circumstances as trifles." "Are you willing also to brave the world's opinion, to act rashly, imprudently, as people say?" Marian gave her lover a searching, inquiring look. "Your father absolutely forbids the marriage; what remains for us but elopement?" Marian slightly trembled, while Eleanor frowned. A long pause. "You think, dearest, that it would be right to marry me without your father's consent. You cannot object to the only method; we have merely to take a pleasant journey of fifty miles, and return with the clergyman's sanction to leave father and mother, to dwell together as long as life shall last.” Marian looked at Eleanor. "Well," said Frank, with a grave smile, "what does our wise sister think? Eleanor shook her head. "Your reasoning is very plausible, Frank, but I fear that clandestine marriages are always wrong. I should not think that duty to my parents required me to marry a man whom I did not love; but I should not dare to marry without their consent." a "But have parents a right to interfere, when children are of an age to judge for themselves?" "If the great end of life could be answered only by marriage, I should think that you had a right to form that union without waiting for any one's consent. Marriage, however, is not indispensable to the performance of life's duties. It is only a circumstance." "Ah, Eleanor, you have never loved." Eleanor half smiled and said, "From what I see, I do not think it desirable that I should. But to return to your case. Cannot you have a little patience? father may yet give his permission.' "He never will," said Frank. "He never will," repeated Marian. Without noticing what the lovers had just declared, Eleanor proceeded: "You have a good prospect; in a few years you may again be rich. Do not urge my sister to filce like a culprit from her father's house, that she may gain the right to be your wife; wait till you are in such a situation that her natural guardian will honorably give her to you." "Years may elapse, Eleanor, before I am again rich; ere that time your father may have commanded her to marry some one old as Methuselah, ugly as Esop, but rich as Croesus." "She would not be compelled to accept the very formidable lover whom you have so graphically described.” "But must she be doomed to the hard fate of opposing her father, and contending with him? Better let her marry me, even if we must elope for the purpose, than keep her at home wearing out her life in vain longing, and receiving the addresses of others who will surely come, and whom her father will encourage." 1 Mrs. Holbrook now hastily entered, saying: "Your father has called to escort you home, girls; away with you, Frank." "One word more," said the young gentleman; "Eleanor, don't play the mentor over my darling. Marian, don't be influenced by the arguments of our grave sister; listen to your own heart, and to mine. I shall soon see you again. God bless you." CHAPTER XIII. "Be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free: Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his to-morrow, SHELLEY. THE next morning, as the sisters were discussing the incident recorded in the preceding chapter, Eleanor was summoned to her father's presence. Marian trembled. "Eleanor, Eleanor," she cried, " do not betray me!" "I will not if I can possibly avoid it," replied Eleanor, releasing herself from Marian's grasp; "and now, dearest," she continued, tenderly kissing the agitated girl, "calm yourself and hope that the conference is to be upon some other subject than your misfortunes." Eleanor entered the library, and was invited to take a seat. Her father looked at her for some moments with a troubled brow, as if her presence annoyed him. He then produced a letter, and perused it in silence. Eleanor's curiosity was |