ally arose to her whether her aunt had
treated her justly in bracketing her with John Ball in that matter of
age. John Ball was ten years her senior; and ten years, she knew, was
a very proper difference between a man and his wife. She was by no
means inclined to plead, even to herself, that she was too young
to marry her cousin; there was nothing in their ages to interfere,
if the match was in other respects suitable. But still, was not he
old for his age, and was not she young for hers? And if she should
ultimately resolve to devote herself and what she had left of
youth to his children and his welfare, should not the sacrifice be
recognised? Had Lady Ball done well to speak of her as she certainly
might well speak of him? Was she beyond all aptitude for billing and
cooing, if billing and cooing might chance to come in her way?

Thinking of this during the long afternoon, when Susanna was at
school, she got up and looked at herself in the mirror. She moved up
her hair from off her ears, knowing where she would find a few that
were grey, and shaking her head, as though owning to herself that
she was old; but as her fingers ran almost involuntarily across her
locks, her touch told her that they were soft and silken; and she
looked into her own eyes, and saw that they were bright; and her hand
touched the outline of her cheek, and she knew that something of the
fresh bloom of youth was still there; and her lips parted, and there
were her white teeth; and there came a smile and a dimple, and a
slight purpose of laughter in her eye, and then a tear. She pulled
her scarf tighter across her bosom, feeling her own form, and then
she leaned forward and kissed herself in the glass.

He was very careworn, soiled as it were with the world, tired out
with the dusty, weary life's walk which he had been compelled to
take. Of romance in him there was nothing left, while in her the
aptitude for romance had only just been born. It was not only that
his head was bald, but that his eye was dull, and his step slow. The
juices of life had been pressed out of him; his thoughts were all
of his cares, and never of his hopes. It would be very sad to be
the wife of such a man; it would be very sad, if there were no
compensation; but might not the sacrificial duties give her that
atonement which she would require? She would fain do something with
her life and her money,--some good, some great good to some other
person. If that good to another