I need not urge on you
my position and all that, because I do not think that weighs with you;
but I do tell you that I love Ellen so dearly that, though I am not
worthy of her, of course, I have no other pleasure than to give her
pleasure and to try to make her happy. I have the power to do it; but
what is much more, I have the wish to do it; it is all I think of now,
and all that I can ever think of. What she thinks of me you must ask
her; but what she is to me neither she can tell you nor do I believe
that I myself could make you understand." The young man's face was
flushed and eager, and as he finished speaking he raised his head and
watched the bishop's countenance anxiously. But the older man's face
was hidden by his hand as he leaned with his elbow on his
writing-table. His other hand was playing with a pen, and when he
began to speak, which he did after a long pause, he still turned it
between his fingers and looked down at it.
"I suppose," he said, as softly as though he were speaking to himself,
"that I should have known this; I suppose that I should have been
better prepared to hear it. But it is one of those things which men
put off--I mean those men who have children, put off--as they do
making their wills, as something that is in the future and that may be
shirked until it comes. We seem to think that our daughters will live
with us always, just as we expect to live on ourselves until death
comes one day and startles us and finds us unprepared.
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