118
ETHEL CHURCHILL.
CHAPTER XII.
DIFFICULTIES.
I do not ask to offer thee
A timid love like mine;
I lay it, as the rose is laid,
On some immortal shrine.
I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove.
But little have I been beloved,
Sad, silent, and alone;
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is mine own.
Thine is the name I breathe to Heaven,
Thy face is on my sleep;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.
Agreeable as Norbourne Courtenaye found his uncle's society, he could not but perceive that it operated, in some strange way, as a
