d not care,
nothing could touch her now. Even the old woman, cross with waiting by
the fading kitchen fire, noticed the light in the girl's eyes. She had
always thought the girl hard and ungracious, but now that face was
soft, and the mouth smiling over its secret thoughts, and the eyes
sleepy with happiness.

Maggie could have said: "I'm wild with joy, Martha. I know what love
is. I had never thought that it could be like this. Be kind to me
because it's the greatest night of my life."

Martha said: "There's some milk hotted for you, Miss, and some
biscuits. There on the table by the stairs."

"Oh, I don't want anything, Martha, thank you!"

"Your aunt said you was to have it."

Maggie drank it down, Martha watching her. Then she went upstairs
softly, as though her joy might awaken the whole house. She lay
wide-eyed on her bed for hours, then fell into a heavy sleep, deep,
without dreams.

When, in the quieter light of the morning, she considered the event,
she had no doubts nor hesitations. She loved Martin and Martin loved
her. Soon Martin would marry her and they would go away. Her aunt would
be sorry of course, and his father, perhaps, would be angry, but the
sorrow and anger would be only for a little while. Then Martin and she
would live happily together always--happily because they were both
sensible people, and her own standard of fidelity and trust was, she
supposed, also his. She did not think very deeply about what he had
said to her; it only meant that he wanted to escape from his family, a
desire in which she could completely sympathise. She had loved him, as
she now saw, from the first moment of meeting, and she would love him
always. She would never be alone again, and although Martin had told
her that he was weak, and she knew something about men, she was aware
that their love for one another would be a thing apart, constant,
unfaltering, eternal. She had read no modern fiction; she knew nothing
about psychology: she was absolutely happy ...

And then in that very first day she discovered that life was not quite
so simple. In the first place, she wanted Martin desperately and he did
not come; and although she had at once a thousand sensible reasons for
the impossibility of his coming, nevertheless strange new troubles and
suspicions that she had never known before rose in her heart. She had
only kissed him once; he had only held her in his arms for a few
moments ...She waited, looking from behi