m that the young man's estrangement from his
neighbors had kept him hitherto and might still keep him in ignorance of
the truth. Hastily, therefore, and inconsiderately, the Major
determined to confirm this ignorance. "No," said he; "I've had no news.
Severn and I are not on such terms as to correspond."

The next time Luttrel came to the farm, he found the master sitting up
in a great, cushioned, chintz-covered arm-chair which Gertrude had sent
him the day before out of her own dressing-room.

"Are you engaged yet?" asked Richard.

There was a strain as if of defiance in his tone. The Major was
irritated. "Yes," said he, "we _are_ engaged now."

The young man's face betrayed no emotion.

"Are you reconciled to it?" asked Luttrel.

"Yes, practically I am."

"What do you mean by practically? Explain yourself."

"A man in my state can't explain himself. I mean that, however I feel
about it, I shall accept Gertrude's marriage."

"You're a wise man, my boy," said the Major, kindly.

"I'm growing wise. I feel like Solomon on his throne in this chair. But
I confess, sir, I don't see how she could have you."

"Well, there's no accounting for tastes," said the Major,
good-humoredly.

"Ah, if it's been a matter of taste with her," said Richard, "I have
nothing to say."

They came to no more express understanding than this with regard to the
future. Richard continued to grow stronger daily, and to defer the
renewal of his intercourse with Gertrude. A month before, he would have
resented as a bitter insult the intimation that he would ever be so
resigned to lose her as he now found himself. He would not see her for
two reasons: first, because he felt that it would be--or that at least
in reason it ought to be--a painful experience to look upon his old
mistress with a coldly critical eye; and secondly, because, justify to
himself as he would his new-born indifference, he could not entirely
cast away the suspicion that it was a last remnant of disease, and that,
when he stood on his legs again in the presence of those exuberant
landscapes with which he had long since established a sort of sensuous
communion, he would feel, as with a great tumultuous rush, the return of
his impetuous manhood and of his old capacity. When he had smoked a pipe
in the outer sunshine, when he had settled himself once more to the long
elastic bound of his mare, then he would see Gertrude. The reason of the
change which had come upon him wa