"How little you know my father," she said; "he loves his beautiful quiet home, and the peaceful, happy scene of his work, far better than dignities with their restraints and cares."
"But the higher and the more influential the position," said the candidate, "the greater the scope for work, and the richer the blessing that zealous labour may obtain."
"It may be so," returned the young girl, "but the fruit is not so plainly seen, intercourse with the people is so much less intimate, and my father has often told me that his highest pleasure is to pour comfort and peace into a troubled soul, and his highest pride to bring back an erring heart to God. But you intend to remain here yourself, cousin," she added with a smile, "and to bury yourself in this solitude?"
"I have to commence my career," he replied, "I must work to rise, and youth is the time for toil; but as the aim of my life, I shall certainly place a much higher object before me." His eye scanned the far distance as if he were looking for some aim, very different to anything which the quiet landscape around had to show.
"And you, Helena," he asked after a moment's pause, "have you never felt the need of a higher intellectual life, the longing for a more extensive world?"
"No," she replied simply; "such a world would only depress and alarm me. When we were lately in Hanover it seemed as if all my blood rushed back to my heart, I could scarcely understand what was said to me, and I felt so dreadfully lonely. Here I know everything around me, the people and the country; here life feels so rich and so warm, but in a large town it felt cold and narrow. I should be very unhappy if my father were going away from here; but there is no idea of such a thing," she said in a tone of certainty.
The candidate sighed slightly as he gazed straight before him.
"But in winter," he said, "when you cannot be out of doors, and when nature has no charms, you must be very dull and lonely."
"Oh, no!" she cried cheerfully, "never. We are never dull here, you cannot think how pleasantly we pass the long winter evenings. My father reads to me, and tells me about so many things, and I play and sing to him. He is so happy after his day's work."
Again the candidate sighed.