.

"If it's not Mr Hunter, I don't know. Tell me yourself."

"Dane Peignton! Oh, Mary, why didn't you guess? I've cared always--
from the very first hour I saw him, and I knew he cared too, I was sure
of it--and yet, one _can't_ be sure! When one cares so much, it seems
too good to be true. He is so different from anyone else in this stupid
little place. He belongs to the world, and to people like... like the
people I met to-night, not to our poor, prosy little set. He was the
most popular man there. He talked, and they listened; he made things
go. They all liked him, and admired him. He has been here only a few
months, and they all treat him as a friend, and oh, Mary! you know what
they are like to _us_? If it hadn't been for him I should have felt
like a fish out of water. They gushed, of course, they always gush, but
one felt so apart. Old Sir Henry sat on my other side, and persisted in
mistaking me for Miss Pell, and talked of things I knew nothing about.
I am sure they were all wondering what on earth I was doing up there.
What will they think to-morrow when they hear! I'm going to announce it
at once. I want everyone to know. I'd like to shout it from the church
tower... Oh, Mary, isn't it splendid? Don't you think I am the
luckiest girl... Don't you think it is wonderful that he should care
for me?"

"Yes... Does he?"

There was an incredulity in the voice in which the words were put which
arrested Teresa in her flow of eloquence. She stared with lips agape,
her blue eyes darkening in amaze.

"_Does he_? Does he care?... You ask me that! What are you dreaming
about? If he didn't care, why in the world should he ask me to be his
wife? We are not rich; we are not grand. Ours is not exactly a
_lively_ family for a man to marry into. He might have chosen a girl in
such a different position. Why should he choose me?"

Mary pulled the blankets over her thin chest, and appeared to consider
the matter, her eyes resting on her sister's face with a coolly critical
scrutiny.

"Perhaps because--you wanted him to! You generally do manage to get
what you want, don't you, Teresa?"

Teresa straightened herself with an air of offence.

"There was no _management_ about this, anyhow! Whatever I wanted, I
didn't give myself away. I never ran after him and made myself cheap,
as some girls do. It's horrid of you to suggest such a thing. Did I
ever show that I cared for him when he was here