"This is a fearful precipice upon which you stand. That poor creature has sunk into the gulf which yawns beneath your feet. May God, in his mercy, look upon her! But you, beautiful as one of heaven's angels—as yet pure and sinless as a child—must you fall, sink, perish, in this mass of loathsome corruption? Better starve, better die—far, far better."
"Alas, alas!" she cried, with a scared and terrified look, "Alas! alas! ten hundred thousand times better. Oh, what must I do? what must I do?"
"Take up your cross: venture upon the hardships of a poor man's wife. Discard all the prides, and pomps, and vanities—the vain, vain delusions of flattery: trample upon the sin, triumph over the temptation. Put yourself under the protection of an honest man, who loves you from his soul. Starve, if it must be, but die the death of the righteous and pure."
She gazed at him, amazed; she did not yet understand him.
"Marry me. Come to my blessed, my excellent mother's roof. It is homely, but it is honest; and let us labor and suffer together, if need be. It is all I can offer you, but it will save you."
The arms, the beautiful arms were expanded, as it were, in a very agony of joy. The face! oh, was it not glorious in its beauty then! Did he ever forget it?
And so the contract was sealed, and so she was rescued from the pit of destruction into which she was rapidly sinking.
And this it was that had excited such impassioned, such lasting, such devoted feelings of gratitude to Him who rules the course of this world, in a heart which had only to be shown what was good to embrace it.
Fisher was all he had said; extremely poor. His salary, as assistant, was handsome, nevertheless. He received one hundred a year and his board from the gentleman with whom he was; but his dress, which was necessarily rather expensive, and his mother, who had only an annuity of twelve pounds a year, consumed it all. Still you see he was by no means actually starving; and he thought the young wife he was going to bring home would be no very great addition to his expenses, and he trusted, if children came, that he should, by his exertions, be able to provide for them. In two years his engagement with the present gentleman as his assistant would be at an end; and he had received from the old man, who was a sort of humorist in his way, several very strong hints about partnership, if he would be satisfied with a reasonable share. Partnership would, in the course of time, he knew, become sole proprietorship, at the death or retirement of his aged patron—one of which events could not be very far distant.
It was, therefore, with great satisfaction, after having summoned the necessary attendance, and sent his young betrothed to rest, that Fisher walked home on a fine fresh morning.