a
tone of the intensest astonishment.

"You wouldn't say you loved me," replied the doctor, beginning to feel a
little ashamed of himself.

Hetty's eyes were fixed on his now, with no wavering in their gaze. She
looked at him, as if her life lay in the balance of what she might read
in his face.

"Did you not know that I loved you before you asked me to say so?" she
said with emphasis. It was the doctor's turn now to color. He answered
evasively:

"A man has no right to know that, Hetty, until a woman tells him so."

"Did you not think that I loved you," repeated Hetty, with the same
emphasis, and a graver expression on her face.

Dr. Eben hesitated. Already, he felt a sort of fear of the incalculable
processes and changes in this woman's mind. Would she be angry if he
said, he had thought she loved him? Would she be sure to recognize any
equivocation, and be angrier at that?

"Hetty," he said, taking her hand in his, "I did hope very strongly that
you loved me, or else I should never have asked you to say so; but you
ought to be willing to say so, if it be true. Think how many times I
have said it to you."

Hetty's eyes did not leave his: their expression deepened until they
seemed to darken and enlarge. She did not speak.

"Will you not say it now, Hetty?" urged the doctor.

"I can't," replied Hetty, and turned and walked slowly away. Presently
she turned again, and walked swiftly back to him, and exclaimed:

"What do you suppose is the reason it is so hard for me to say it?"

Dr. Eben laughed. "I can't imagine, Hetty. The only thing that is hard
for me, is not to keep saying it all the time."

Hetty smiled.

"There must be something wrong in me. I think I shall never say it. But
I suppose"--She hesitated, and her eyes twinkled. "I suppose you might
come to be very sure of it without my ever saying it?"

"I am sure of it now, you darling," exclaimed the doctor; and threw both
his arms around her, and this time Hetty did not struggle.

When Welbury heard that Hetty Gunn was to marry Doctor Ebenezer
Williams, there was a fine hubbub of talk. There was no half-way opinion
in anybody's mind on the question. Everybody was vehement, one way or
the other. All Doctor Eben's friends were hilarious; and the greater
part of Hetty's were gloomy. They said, he was marrying her for her
money; that Hetty was too old, and too independent in all her ways, to
be married at all; that they would be sure to fall out q