"Brother," interposed Hester, anxious to avoid any expression of excited feeling, "you have renounced the position my father ambitioned for you; you cannot hold office under government; you cannot become a member of Parliament; you cannot act as a magistrate; [Footnote 173] or take any useful part in the work of society. Surely three thousand pounds a year will supply all your personal wants."
[Footnote 173: At the time of which we write the civil disabilities for all dissenters from the English Establishment, and for all Catholics, were still in force in England.]
"You have assumed a great deal, my good sister; a great deal more than you can prove, I think. If I understand this matter rightly, it these yourself who are be to benefited by this arrangement. You want to experimentalize, to found a new Utopia; surely I might do that at least as well as a woman."
"No, for you believe not in the principle. Money in your hands, just now, would sink; you might build churches or convents, but forward the progression of the race you would not. A bare-footed Carmelite ranks higher in your estimation that a man raised by talent and industry to a position surrounded by means of enjoyment. Now, my father objects conscientiously, and his immediate ancestors would also object to appropriate the both of his property to a phantasm. He offers you a maintenance superior to the property your theory upholds. Be consistent; try your own principle of renunciation, of poverty, if you so like to term an annuity of three thousand a year. The allotment which will be termed mine is in my eyes, and in in my father's, an investment for the good of society, of which I am but a directress. Give to the world that which the world claims, [{599}] take the portion you have chosen in which the world has no share—spirituality. Conscientiously my father has strained a point to offer you so much, for he looks upon the promotion of your views as injurious to the human race."
There was a long pause, a long silence; then Eugene said, "I must take time to consider; my signature would not be of any avail until I am of age, and it wants three weeks to that time. In a month's time I will give you an answer."
Eugene, after a vain attempt to see his mother, returned to the town in which Euphrasie resided. He was now determined to have the interview he had so long vainly sought for. On that interview greatly depended his future determination.
He did not call on her at her mother's abode. He waylaid her as she was returning home from giving her lessons; with a few earnest words induced her to permit him to lead her into a secluded grove where often he had mused on her perfections, and there, at length, he took courage, and poured forth, as much by gesture as by words, his long pent-up tale of love, so hidden out of reverence, a reverence which now gave way to the anxiety of placing her in a more suitable position than the one she at present occupied, although still falling short of that which she was calculated to adorn.
Euphrasie listened with profound attention; certainly not coldly. She fully appreciated the young man's devotion, she fully believed his tale. Even tears filled her eyes as he proceeded; but she was long in answering.
"May I take this silence for consent, dear Euphrasie?" said Eugene.
Euphrasie shook her head. "No, indeed, you may not, my kind friend," she said. "I am silent because I know not how to express my sense of your worth, of your kindness, of your disinterestedness, in fitting terms, and accompany my words with a refusal. What you propose can never be. Another vocation is mine. Yet believe me that my gratitude, my friendship, my esteem, are, and ever must remain, your own. I thank you earnestly for the long forbearing and silent sympathy which I have ever received from you."