"Do you mean my aunt's husband?"
I nodded.
She turned her face away.
"I ought not to have told you," I added.
"Oh! yes, you ought. I would have wanted to know if it had been my father. I have the dearest father in the world. You do not know how good and kind he is, and how generous to every one. He has almost ruined himself working for others."
I said I had no doubt he was all she said; but my heart sank as I recalled my part in the paper I had written about him. I knew I must tell her some time, but I hesitated to do it now. I began to talk about myself, a subject I am rather fond of, but on this occasion I had possibly more excuse than usual.
"My mother also died when I was a child," she said, sighing, as I related the loss of mine and said that I was just beginning to realize what it was. It appeared to draw us nearer together. I was conscious of her sympathy, and under its influence I went on and told her the wretched story of my life, my folly and my failure, and my final resolve to begin anew and be something worth while. I did not spare myself and I made no concealments. I felt her sympathy and it was as sweet to me as ever was grace to a famished soul. I had been so long alone that it seemed to unlock Heaven.
"I believe you will succeed," she said, turning and looking me in the face.
A sudden fire sprang into my brain and throbbed in my heart. "If you will say that to me and mean it, I will."
"I do believe it. Of course, I mean it." She stopped and looked me again full in the face, and her eyes seemed to me to hold the depths of Heaven: deep, calm, confiding, and untroubled as a child's. They stirred me deeply. Why should I not declare myself! She was, since her father's embarrassment, of which I had read, no longer beyond my reach. Did I not hold the future in fee? Why might not I win her?