though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
for a glass even then. But everybody liked him better than Dick. He
spent about a month here. Leslie never saw him; she was only about
eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
over harbor with her grandmother West. Captain Jim was away, too--that
was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens. I don't suppose either
he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
much like Dick. Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
Dick--George, I should say--home. Of course, we all thought Dick had
changed considerable--he'd got so lumpish and fat. But we put that
down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
for, as I've said, George wasn't fat to begin with either. And there
was no other way we could have guessed, for the man's senses were clean
gone. I can't see that it is any wonder we were all deceived. But
it's a staggering thing. And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
her life to nursing a man who hadn't any claim on her! Oh, drat the
men! No matter what they do, it's the wrong thing. And no matter who
they are, it's somebody they shouldn't be. They do exasperate me."

"Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
has been discovered at last," said Anne.

"Well, I admit that," conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly. "I'm sorry I
raked the doctor off so. It's the first time in my life I've ever felt
ashamed of anything I said to a man. I don't know as I shall tell him
so, though. He'll just have to take it for granted. Well, Anne,
dearie, it's a mercy the Lord doesn't answer all our prayers. I've
been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn't cure Dick.
Of course I didn't put it just quite so plain. But that was what was
in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it."

"Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer. You really wished
that things shouldn't be made any harder for Leslie. I'm afraid that
in my secret heart I've been hoping the operation wouldn't succeed, and
I am wholesomely ashamed of it."

"How does Leslie seem to take it?"

"She writes like one dazed. I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
realises it yet. She says, 'It all seems like a strange dream to me,
Anne.' That is the only reference she makes to herself."

"Poor child! I suppose when the chains are struck off a