ld for Marcella; and besides, there were the Barrys to be reckoned
with. Those Barrys were the nightmare dread of poor Miss Sara's life.

The time came when Doctor John's eyes were opened. He looked into his
own heart and read there what life had written for him. As he told me
long afterwards, it came to him with a shock that left him
white-lipped. But he was a brave, sensible fellow and he looked the
matter squarely in the face. First of all, he put away to one side all
that the world might say; the thing concerned solely him and Marcella,
and the world had nothing to do with it. That disposed of, he asked
himself soberly if he had a right to try to win Marcella's love. He
decided that he had not; it would be taking an unfair advantage of her
youth and inexperience. He knew that she must soon go to her father's
people--she must not go bound by any ties of his making. Doctor John,
for Marcella's sake, gave the decision against his own heart.

So much did Doctor John tell me, his old friend and confidant. I said
nothing and gave no advice, not having lived seventy-five years for
nothing. I knew that Doctor John's decision was manly and right and
fair; but I also knew it was all nullified by the fact that Marcella
already loved him.

So much I knew; the rest I was left to suppose. The Doctor and
Marcella told me much, but there were some things too sacred to be
told, even to me. So that to this day I don't know how the doctor
found out that Marcella loved him. All I know is that one day, just a
month before her sixteenth birthday, the two came hand in hand to Miss
Sara and me, as we sat on Miss Sara's veranda in the twilight, and
told us simply that they had plighted their troth to each other.

I looked at them standing there with that wonderful sunrise of life
and love on their faces--the doctor, tall and serious, with a sprinkle
of silver in his brown hair and the smile of a happy man on his
lips--Marcella, such a slip of a girl, with her black hair in a long
braid and her lovely face all dewed over with tears and sunned over
with smiles--I, an old woman, looked at them and thanked the good God
for them and their delight.

Miss Sara laughed and cried and kissed--and forboded what the Barrys
would do. Her forebodings proved only too true. When the doctor wrote
to Richard Barry, Marcella's guardian, asking his consent to their
engagement, Richard Barry promptly made trouble--the very worst kind
of trouble. He descend