 of earnestness one day or other. My wonder is, that
you are not in earnest yourself, by this time, Agnes.«
    Agnes laughed again, and shook her head.
    »Oh, I know you are not!« said I, »because if you had been, you would have
told me. Or at least,« for I saw a faint blush in her face, »you would have let
me find it out for myself. But there is no one that I know of, who deserves to
love you, Agnes. Some one of a nobler character, and more worthy altogether than
any one I have ever seen here, must rise up, before I give my consent. In the
time to come, I shall have a wary eye on all admirers; and shall exact a great
deal from the successful one, I assure you.«
    We had gone on, so far, in a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, that
had long grown naturally out of our familiar relations, begun as mere children.
But Agnes, now suddenly lifting up her eyes to mine, and speaking in a different
manner, said:
    »Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not
have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps. Something I would
ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual alteration in Papa?«
    I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must have
shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and I
saw tears in them.
    »Tell me what it is,« she said, in a low voice.
    »I think - shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?«
    »Yes,« she said.
    »I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon him
since I first came here. He is often very nervous, or I fancy so.«
    »It is not fancy,« said Agnes, shaking her head.
    »His hand trembles, his speech is not plain, and his eyes look wild. I have
remarked that at those times, and when he is least like himself, he is most
certain to be wanted on some business.«
    »By Uriah,« said Agnes.
    »Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood it,
or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so
uneasy, that next
