"Mattie, you are not romantic? You do not anticipate from me, in my desolate position, all the passionate protestations of a lover? You will believe that I look forward to you as the wife in whom alone rests the last chance of happiness for me?"
"We cannot tell what is our last chance," said Mattie; "it is beyond our foresight—God will give us many chances in life, and the best may not have fallen to your share or mine. Sidney, there was a chance of happiness for you once—on which you built, and in which you never thought of me—do you regret that now?" she asked, with a woman's instinctive fear that the old love still lingered in his heart.
"Mattie, I regret nothing in the past. And in the future, I am hopeful of your aid and love. Can I say more?"
"Sidney," said Mattie, after a second pause, "I will not give you my answer to-night—I will not say that I will be your wife, for better for worse, until this day month. It is a grave question, and I ought not to decide this hastily. I must think—I must think!"
"Ah! Mattie, you don't love me, or it would be easy enough to say 'Yes,'" said Sidney.
"No, not easy."
"I can read my fate—eternal isolation!" he said gloomily.
"Patience—you can trust me; let me think for a while if I can trust in you. You do not wish my unhappiness, Sid?"
"God forbid!"
"We have been good friends hitherto—brother and sister. For one more month, let us keep brother and sister still; there is no danger of our teaching ourselves to love one another less in that period. In that month will you think seriously of me—not of what will make me happy—but what will render you happy, as the fairy books say, for ever afterwards? Remember that it is for ever in this life, and that I am to sit by your side and take that place in your heart which you had once reserved for another—think of all this, and be honest and fair with me."