Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/323

Rh deficient in both sense and principle, by your own confession—"

"Then, my sense and my principle are at his service!"

"That sounds presumptuous, Helen! Do you think you have enough for both; and do you imagine your merry, thoughtless profligate would allow himself to be guided by a young girl like you?"

"No; I should not wish to guide him; but I think I might have influence sufficient to save him from some errors, and I should think my life well spent in the effort to preserve so noble a nature from destruction. He always listens attentively now, when I speak seriously to him, (and I often venture to reprove his random way of talking,) and sometimes he says that if he had me always by his side he should never do or say a wicked thing, and that a little daily talk with me would make him quite a saint. It may be partly jest and partly flattery, but still—"