"My dearest Marian, my own pet, I hate to think of you in lodgings; I cannot bear to picture you so!"
"You must make haste to get your position, and take me to share it, then, Walter!" said the girl, with a half-melancholy smile; "you must do great things, Walter. Dear papa always said you would, and you must prove how right he was."
"Dearest, your poor father calculated on my success at college for the furtherance of my fortune, and now all that chance is over! Whatever I do now must be----"
"By the aid of your own talent and industry, exactly the same appliances which you had to rely on if you had gone to the University, Walter. You don't fear the result? You're not alarmed and desponding at the turn which affairs have taken? It's impossible you can fail to attain distinction, and--and money and--and position, Walter--you must,--don't you feel it?--you must!"
"Yes, dear, I feel it; I hope--I think; perhaps not so strongly, so enthusiastically as you do. You see,--don't be downcast, Marian, but it's best to look these things in the face, darling!--all I can try to get is a tutor's, or an usher's, or a secretary's place, and in any of these the want of the University stamp is heavily against me. There's no disguising that, Marian!"
"Oh, indeed; is that so?"
"Yes, child, undoubtedly. The University degree is like the Hall-mark in silver, and I'm afraid I shall find very few persons willing to accept me as the genuine article without it."
"And all this risk might have been avoided if your father had only----"
"Well, yes; but then, Marian darling, if my father had left me money to go to college immediately on his death I should never have known you--known you, I mean, as you are, the dearest and sweetest of women."
He drew her to him as he spoke, and pressed his lips on her forehead. She received the kiss without any undue emotion, and said--