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290 to redeem them. Had I not fully relied on his character, dearly as I love him, and anxious as I am to evince that love by more than words, I could not have proposed it; and remember, dear Sir Edward, I did not ask you to give your estates. Long, very long, may it be before they are bequeathed. Time will, I trust, have taught Arthur wisdom long ere then, and myself also, and your fears will be confined to our children. May they be what all the Hales have been, and the lesson will be short!" "Perhaps I have spoken hastily—too hastily; but I am an old man, and the apprehensions of age err as much on one side as the romance of youth on the other." "Dear grandfather, you forget that you began life early, and have felt its sorrows acutely; but I have always understood that the old age of a virtuous life was long and gentle. I have been wrong to urge this suit; I will do so no more. I have over-valued my life, and sought to pay too high a price for that which has yet to prove its worth." "Don't say that, Frederic; don't say that. You have been the stay and blessing of my life, and the comfort of your idolized father's; your feelings are worthy of you, and my local attachments not, I trust, unworthy me. If for the first time in your life they have jarred, yet, in point of fact, our sense of your obligation and of your devotedness to your brother is alike binding; and, if I had not been averse to the