k through the woods!" suggested Nan
insinuatingly; but Maud drew back with a quiver of pain.

"No, no! Not this morning! I should remember it always. Every step of
the path would bring back this wretched day in the future, and I do so
love the woods. Let me keep them free from association, at least. It
will be bad enough to dread this road, as I always shall after this."

"Just as you like, dear, just as you like; but what will you do? You
can't sit still and think all the time!"

"I'll make up my accounts," said Maud simply; and, despite her sister's
cry of protest, she insisted on doing as she said. Pencil and note-book
came out of her pocket, and one item after another of the morning's
shopping was jotted down, and the result compared with the change in the
housekeeping purse.

How could she do it? Nan tried to imagine how she herself would have
acted in similar circumstances, and felt her heart beat fast at the
possibility. Rage, storm, despair; drown herself in the nearest stream;
lie down beneath the express train; bid farewell to the world, and
retire into a nunnery. All these alternatives seemed natural and easy;
she could imagine taking refuge in any one of them. But to go on with
ordinary, everyday work, to take up the "next duty" and perform it in
quiet, conscientious fashion--that was impossible!--the last thing in
the world that she could bring herself to do.

She did not realise that the bent of a lifetime is not reversed in a
moment, and that even the pangs of slighted love must be borne according
to the temperament of the sufferer. Dear, placid, domesticated Maud
found her best medicine in the "trivial round, the common task."

Nan, looking over her shoulder, saw that the little rows of figures were
as neat and accurate as ever, and caught a sigh of satisfaction when
they were added together, and the change in the housekeeping purse was
proved correct. Even in the midst of her distress, Maud was conscious
of a distinct sense of satisfaction in balancing her accounts to a
penny.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT.

The remaining hours of that day were the most painful which Maud had
ever known. The sisters returned to find the household in a state of
wild excitement, for such secrets seemed to leak out in the air, so that
the very servants suspected the truth, and walked about the house with
curious smiles. The housemaid confided to the cook that the missis had
come in fr