text:  Why shall I not be its protector still? Why not be suffered to devote mine to making yours happy?" But the bitter thought struck me as I uttered the words--how far I was from the power of giving this incomparable creature the station in society which was hers by right! How feeble was my hope even of competence! How painfully I should look upon her beauty her fine understanding and her generous heart humbled to the narrow circumstances of one whose life depended upon the chances of the most precarious of all professions and whose success in that profession depended wholly on the caprice of fortune