"It is about him," continued Wilkins, "that I have been thinking this evening. I really take a deep interest in his welfare, and wish I knew how to guide him. For his sake I wish my own heart was more disciplined, that I was not so utterly incapable."
"Don't let such thoughts as these prevent you from using your influence with my poor brother, Wilkins. I am too young, too weak, too inexperienced, to control him. He would naturally scorn the advice of one so much younger; but you, oh! don't let too lowly an opinion of yourself deprive Arthur of the counsel and guidance he so much needs."
"Ah! Guly, you don't know me. I might tell him how he should do; but my example, if he should ever chance to see it, would disgust him with my advice. Had it been different when I first came here, I might now be a better man. I was an orphan, came here from the North, had no soul in this vast city to love or care for me, and for five years I have lived here loveless and lonely, save when with those companions which a friendless being is almost sure to fall in with here; and I can turn to no one, feeling that they care for me."
"Wilkins, I love you; indeed, I love you as a brother."
"I believe you, Guly; though we are so different; though my cherishing you is like the lion mating with the lamb, still I believe in my heart the honest love I feel for you, God has blest me by causing you to reciprocate. I have been a better man since I first held you here on my heart. A better man, Heaven knows!"
"Wilkins, in all the five years you have been here, do you mean to say Mr. Delancey has never asked you to his house, or noticed you any more than he does now?"
"I have never been asked to enter his door, Guly, any more than you have. He would as soon, I suppose, turn a herd of swine into his drawing-room, as to ask his clerks there. He is very proud."
"That isn't pride, Wilkins; it is meanness. A truly proud man would adopt the contrary course, I am sure;
and so attach all his employees to himself, and to his interests."