lustration.

"I can't tell you all my reasons for not wishing to marry," Nan went
on, growing very white and determined, "or all my reasons for wishing
to go on with my plan of being a doctor; but I know I have no right to
the one way of life, and a perfect one, so far as I can see, to the
other. And it seems to me that it would be as sensible to ask Mr.
Gerry to be a minister since he has just finished his law studies, as
to ask me to be a wife instead of a physician. But what I used to
dread without reason a few years ago, I must forbid myself now,
because I know the wretched inheritance I might have had from my poor
mother's people. I can't speak of that to Aunt Nancy, but you must
tell her not to try to make me change my mind."

"Good God!" said the captain. "I dare say you have the right points of
it; but if I were a young man 't would go hard with me to let you take
your life into your own hands. It's against nature."

"No," said Nan. "The law of right and wrong must rule even love, and
whatever comes to me, I must not forget that. Three years ago I had
not thought about it so much, and I might not have been so sure; but
now I have been taught there is only one road to take. And you must
tell Aunt Nancy this."

But when they went back to the house, Miss Prince was not to be seen,
and the captain hurried away lest she should make her appearance, for
he did not wish just then to talk about the matter any more. He told
himself that young people were very different in these days; but when
he thought of the words he had heard in the garden, and remembered the
pale face and the steadfast, clear-toned voice, he brushed away
something like a tear. "If more people used judgment in this same
decision the world would be better off," he said, and could not help
reminding himself that his own niece, little Mary Parish, who was
wearing a wistful countenance in these days, might by and by be happy
after all. For Nan's part it was a great relief to have spoken to the
kind old man; she felt more secure than before; but sometimes the fear
assailed her that some unforeseen event or unreckoned influence might
give her back to her indecisions, and that the battle of the night
before might after all prove not to be final.

The afternoon wore away, and late in the day our heroine heard George
Gerry's step coming up the street. She listened as she sat by the
upper window, and found that he was giving a message for her. It was
per