you do very well? I'm sure I don't know. And if your aunt
Winterfield means to provide for you, it would only be kind in her
to let me know it, so that I might not have the anxiety always on my
mind."

Clara knew well enough what was to be the disposition of her aunt's
property, but she could not tell her father of that now. She almost
felt that it was her duty to do so, but she could not bring herself
to do it. She could only beg him not to be anxious on her behalf,
making vague assurances that she would do very well. "And you are
determined not to change your mind about Will?" he said at last.

"I shall not change my mind about that, papa, certainly," she
answered. Then he turned away from her, and she saw that he was
displeased.

When alone, she was forced to ask herself why it was that she was so
certain. Alas! there could in truth be no doubt on that subject in
her own mind. When she sat down, resolved to give herself an answer,
there was no doubt. She could not love her cousin, Will Belton,
because her heart belonged to Captain Aylmer.

But she knew that she had received nothing in exchange for her heart.
He had been kind to her on that journey to Taunton, when the agony
arising from her brother's death had almost crushed her. He had
often been kind to her on days before that,--so kind, so soft in
his manners, approaching so nearly to the little tendernesses of
incipient love-making, that the idea of regarding him as her lover
had of necessity forced itself upon her. But in nothing had he gone
beyond those tendernesses, which need not imperatively be made
to mean anything, though they do often mean so much. It was now
two years since she had first thought that Captain Aylmer was
the most perfect gentleman she knew, and nearly two years since
Mrs. Winterfield had expressed to her a hope that Captain Aylmer
might become her husband. She had replied that such a thing was
impossible,--as any girl would have replied; and had in consequence
treated Captain Aylmer with all the coolness which she had been
able to assume whenever she was in company with him in her aunt's
presence. Nor was it natural to her to be specially gracious to a man
under such trying circumstances, even when no Mrs. Winterfield was
there to behold. And so things had gone on. Captain Aylmer had now
and again made himself very pleasant to her,--at certain trying
periods of joy or trouble almost more than pleasant. But nothing had
come of it, an