"'And, if I were you, I would do no more duty till it was paid.'
"Here was decision with a vengeance. It was more than I had bargained for. I was dumb. A moment's reflection, however, showed me that she was perfectly right—that what I had called decision with a vengeance, was merely the utterance of a child's perception of the true way to walk in.
"Still I was silent; for long vistas of duty, and loss, and painful action and effort opened before me. At length I said:
"'You are quite right, Miss Lizzie.'
"'I wish I could pay it for you,' she rejoined, looking up in my face with an expression of still tenderness, while the tears clouded her eyes just as clouds of a deeper grey come over the grey depths of some summer skies.
"'But you can help me to pay it.'
"'How?'
"'Love me,' I said, and no more. I could not.
"The only answer she made, was to look up at me once more, then stop, and, turning towards me, draw herself gently against my side, as she held my arm. It was enough—was it not?
"Love me, I said, and she did love me; and she's down stairs, as I told you; and I think she is not unhappy."