oo, promising him
plenty of work and good pay. Gilbert went, but before going he had
asked Anna to marry him.

It was the first proposal Anna had ever had, and she managed it quite
cleverly, from her standpoint. She told Gilbert that he must wait
until he came home again before settling that, meanwhile, they would
be _very_ good friends--emphasized with a blush--and that he might
write to her. She kissed him goodbye, and Gilbert, honest fellow, was
quite satisfied. When an Exeter girl had allowed so much to be
inferred, it was understood to be equivalent to an engagement. Gilbert
had never discerned that Anna was not like the other Exeter girls, but
was a law unto herself.

Alma sat down by her window and looked out over the lane where the
slim wild cherry trees were bronzing under the autumn frosts. Her lips
were very firmly set. Something must be done. But what?

Alma's heart was set on this marriage for two reasons. Firstly, if
Anna married Gilbert she would be near her all her life. She could not
bear the thought that some day Anna might leave her and go far away to
live. In the second and largest place, she desired the marriage
because Gilbert did. She had always been desirous, even in the old,
childish play-days, that Gilbert should get just exactly what he
wanted. She had always taken a keen, strange delight in furthering his
wishes.

Anna's falseness would surely break his heart, and Alma winced at the
thought of his pain.

There was one thing she could do. Anna's tormenting suggestion had
fallen on fertile soil. Alma balanced pros and cons, admitting the
risk. But she would have taken a tenfold larger risk in the hope of
holding secure Anna's place in Gilbert's affections until Anna herself
should come to her senses.

When it grew quite dark and Anna had gone lilting down the lane on her
way to prayer meeting, Alma lighted her lamp, read Gilbert's
letter--and answered it. Her handwriting was much like Anna's. She
signed the letter "A. Williams," and there was nothing in it that
might not have been written by her to Gilbert; but she knew that
Gilbert would believe Anna had written it, and she intended him so to
believe. Alma never did a thing halfway when she did it at all. At
first she wrote rather constrainedly but, reflecting that in any case
Anna would have written a merely friendly letter, she allowed her
thoughts to run freely, and the resulting epistle was an excellent one
of its kind. Alma had t