incoln should see "that she would not die for him."

Still a minute observer could easily have seen that her gayety was
feigned, for she had loved Henry Lincoln as sincerely as she was
capable of loving, and not even George Moreland, who treated her with
his old boyish familiarity could make her for a moment forget one who
now passed her coldly by, or listened passively while the sarcastic
Evren Herndon likened her to a waxen image, fit only for a glass case!

CHAPTER XXXI.

A QUESTION

Towards the last of April, Mrs. Mason and Mary returned to their old
home in the country. On Ella's account, Mrs. Campbell had decided to
remain in the city during a part of the summer, and she labored hard
to keep Mary also, offering as a last inducement to give Mrs. Mason a
home too. But Mrs. Mason preferred her own house in Chicopee, and
thither Mary accompanied her, promising, however, to spend the next
winter with her aunt, who wept at parting with her more than she would
probably have done had it been Ella.

Mary had partially engaged to teach the school in Rice Corner, but
George, assuming a kind of authority over her, declared she should
not.

"I don't want your eyes to grow dim and your cheeks pale, in that
little pent-up room," said he. "You know I've been there and seen for
myself."

Mary colored, for George's manner of late had puzzled her, and Jenny
had more than once whispered in her ear "I know George loves you, for
he looks at you just as William does at me, only a little more so!"

Ida, too, had once mischievously addressed her as "Cousin," adding
that there was no one among her acquaintances whom she would as
willingly call by that name. "When I was a little girl," said she,
"they used to tease me about George, but I'd as soon think of marrying
my brother. You never saw Mr. Elwood, George's classmate, for he's in
Europe now. Between you and me, I like him and--"

A loud call from Aunt Martha prevented Ida from finishing, and the
conversation was not again resumed. The next morning Mary was to
leave, and as she stood in the parlor talking with Ida, George came in
with a travelling satchel in his hand, and a shawl thrown carelessly
over his arm.

"Where are you going?" asked Ida.

"To Springfield. I have business there," said George.

"And when will you return?" continued Ida, feeling that it would be
doubly lonely at home.

"That depends on circumstances," said he. "I shall stop at Chicopee on
m