carried out.

"After all, Beatrice, this does not alter her birth. I know it is
useless saying anything to Frank."

"Why, you wouldn't break both their hearts now?"

"I don't want to break their hearts, certainly. But there are those
who put their dearest and warmest feelings under restraint rather
than deviate from what they know to be proper." Poor Augusta! she was
the stern professor of the order of this philosophy; the last in the
family who practised with unflinching courage its cruel behests; the
last, always excepting the Lady Amelia.

And how slept Frank that night? With him, at least, let us hope, nay,
let us say boldly, that his happiest thoughts were not of the wealth
which he was to acquire. But yet it would be something to restore
Boxall Hill to Greshamsbury; something to give back to his father
those rumpled vellum documents, since the departure of which the
squire had never had a happy day; nay, something to come forth again
to his friends as a gay, young country squire, instead of as a
farmer, clod-compelling for his bread. We would not have him thought
to be better than he was, nor would we wish him to make him of other
stuff than nature generally uses. His heart did exult at Mary's
wealth; but it leaped higher still when he thought of purer joys.

And what shall we say of Mary's dreams? With her, it was altogether
what she should give, not at all what she should get. Frank had loved
her so truly when she was so poor, such an utter castaway; Frank, who
had ever been the heir of Greshamsbury! Frank, who with his beauty,
and spirit, and his talents might have won the smiles of the richest,
the grandest, the noblest! What lady's heart would not have rejoiced
to be allowed to love her Frank? But he had been true to her through
everything. Ah! how often she thought of that hour, when suddenly
appearing before her, he had strained her to his breast, just as she
had resolved how best to bear the death-like chill of his supposed
estrangements! She was always thinking of that time. She fed her love
by recurring over and over to the altered feeling of that moment. Any
now she could pay him for his goodness. Pay him! No, that would be a
base word, a base thought. Her payment must be made, if God would so
grant it, in many, many years to come. But her store, such as it was,
should be emptied into his lap. It was soothing to her pride that she
would not hurt him by her love, that she would bring no injury to t