88 DEEPER AND DEEPER.

even, or candle-snuffer, or anything to be near
you!”

Jessie laughed and shook her head—“ That would
never do,” said she; “ that would not satisfy me.
My father,” she continued, ‘‘ blames me for want of
amuvition ; but he mistakes me: I am ambitious—
ambitious of the greatest good which life can give,
and that is real love and domestic happiness! Not
such love as we act night after night, poor, unreal
love, all tinsel and glitter ;—no, no, the love that I
mean is self-denying, long-suffering, unobtrusive, as
free to the poor as to the rich. Oh, Edward, I was
ill not long ago ; the company went on without me,
and I and my good grandmother—for such she is—
remained in the house of a poor tailor. Would you
believe it, but it was truly in that house, and with
those humble people, that I first learned what true
Jove was, and what was the real meaning and worth
of life. Happiness there was a substantial thing, not
dependent on wealth or the world’s favour, for of
these they had nothing ; not wavering or uncertain,
according to the whim of the moment, but as real
and steadfast as life itself. Love was never talked of,
but they dwelt in its spirit; it was as if the atmo-
sphere of a better region filled the house ; the children
were born in it, and breathed it as their native air,
and they were good and kind like their parents. A
light then broke in upon my rind. My grandmother
saw and felt these things as [ did ;—she is not,
Edward, the deaf, stupid old woman which it is her
will to appear ; but that is her secret—she and I
understand each other. ‘The goal which I have set
before my ambition is a hore of love, and my prayers,

Heaven knows, are, that I may be kept pure and