You would expose her to poverty and misery; but I say no; it is my duty
to protect her from all chance of them; and, in doing it, I am as much
your friend as hers, if you could but see it. Come, Dr. Staines, be
a man, and see the world as it is. I have told you how to earn my
daughter's hand and my esteem: you must gain both, or neither."
Dr. Staines was never quite deaf to reason: he now put his hand to his
brow and said, with a sort of wonder and pitiful dismay, "My love
for Rosa selfish! Sir, your words are bitter and hard." Then, after a
struggle, and with rare and touching candor, "Ay, but so are bark and
steel; yet they are good medicines." Then with a great glow in his heart
and tears in his eyes, "My darling shall not be a poor man's wife,
she who would adorn a coronet, ay, or a crown. Good-by, Rosa, for the
present." He darted to her, and kissed her hand with all his soul. "Oh,
the sacrifice of leaving you," he faltered; "the very world is dark
to me without you. Ah, well, I must earn the right to come again." He
summoned all his manhood, and marched to the door. There he seemed to
turn calmer all of a sudden, and said firmly, yet humbly, "I'll try and
show you, sir, what love can do.
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