"Still my question is not answered, Eleanor. Have _you_ more liking for
any other person?"

"Aunt Caxton--I do not know--I have seen--I do not know how to answer
you!" Eleanor said in bitter confusion; then hiding her face she went
on--"Just so much as this is true, aunt Caxton,--I have seen, what
makes me know that I do not love Mr. Carlisle; not as he loves me."

Mrs. Caxton stooped forward, took Eleanor's hands down from her face
and kissed her. It was a sad, drooping, pained face, hot with shame.

"My child," she said, "your honesty has saved you. I could not have
advised you, Eleanor, if you had not been frank with me. Poor child!"

Eleanor came down on the floor and hid her face in Mrs. Caxton's lap.
Her aunt kept one hand softly resting on her hair while she spoke. She
was silent first, and then she spoke very tenderly.

"You did not know, at the time you engaged yourself to this gentleman,
that you were doing him wrong?"

"No, ma'am--I thought rather of wrong to myself."

"Why?"

"They were in such a hurry, ma'am."

"Since then, you have seen what you like better."

"Yes, ma'am,"--said Eleanor doubtfully,--"or what I know I _could_ like
better, if there was occasion. That is all."

"Now the question is, in these circumstances, what is your duty to Mr.
Carlisle."

Eleanor lifted her head to look into her aunt's face for the decision
to come.

"The rule of judgment is not far off, Eleanor; it is the golden rule.
'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'
My dear, take the case of the person you could like best in the
world;--would you have such a person marry you if his heart belonged to
somebody else?"

"Not for the whole world!" said Eleanor raising her head which had
fallen again. "But aunt Caxton, that is not my case. My heart is not
anybody's."

"Put it differently then. Would you marry such a man, if you knew that
his mere liking for another was stronger than his love for you?"

"I think--I would rather die!" said Eleanor slowly.

"Then I think your question is answered."

"But aunt Caxton, it is not answered. Mr. Carlisle would not feel so. I
know, he would have me marry him, if he knew that my heart was a
thousand times another person's--which it is not."

"Don't alter the case," said Mrs. Caxton, "except to make it stronger.
If he were the right sort of man, he would not have you do so. There is
no rule that we should make other people's wishes our