"I am not sleepy, mamma."

"Of course you shall tell me what you please, dearest. Is it a
secret? Is it something I am not to repeat?"

"You must say how that ought to be, mamma. I shall not tell it to any
one else."

"Well, dear?"

"Sit comfortably, mamma;--there; like that, and let me have your
hand. It's a terrible story to have to tell."

"A terrible story, Grace?"

"I mean that you must not draw away from me. I shall want to feel
that you are quite close to me. Mamma, while I was at Allington,
Major Grantly came there?"

"Did he, my dear?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Did he know them before?"

"No, mamma; not at the Small House. But he came there--to see me. He
asked me--to be his wife. Don't move, mamma."

"My darling child! I won't move, dearest. Well; and what did you
say to him? God bless him, at any rate. May God bless him, because
he has seen with a true eye, and felt with a noble instinct. It is
something, Grace, to have been wooed by such a man at such a time."

"Mamma, it did make me feel proud; it did."

"You had known him well before,--of course? I knew that you and he
were friends, Grace."

"Yes, we were friends. I always liked him. I used not to know what to
think about him. Miss Anne Prettyman told me that it would be so; and
once before I thought so myself."

"And had you made up your mind what to say to him?"

"Yes, I did then. But I did not say it."

"Did not say what you had made up your mind to say?"

"That was before all this had happened to papa."

"I understand you, dearest."

"When Miss Anne Prettyman told me that I should be ready with my
answer, and when I saw that Miss Prettyman herself used to let him
come to the house and seemed to wish that I should see him when he
came, and when he once was--so very gentle and kind, and when he said
that he wanted me to love Edith,-- Oh, mamma!"

"Yes, darling, I know. Of course you loved him."

"Yes, mamma. And I do love him. How could one not love him?"

"I love him,--for loving you."

"But, mamma, one is bound not to do a harm to any one that one loves.
So when he came to Allington I told him that I could not be his
wife."

"Did you, my dear?"

"Yes; I did. Was I not right? Ought I to go to him to bring a
disgrace upon all the family, just because he is so good that he asks
me? Shall I injure him because he wants to do me a service?"

"If he loves you, Grace, the service he will require will be your
love in return."