You know how happy that will make me," continued Beatrice. "Of
course mamma won't expect me to be led by her then: if he likes it,
there can be no objection; and he will like it, you may be sure of
that."

"You are very kind, Trichy," said Mary; but she spoke in a tone very
different from that she would have used eighteen months ago.

"Why, what is the matter, Mary? Shan't you be glad to come to see
us?"

"I do not know, dearest; that must depend on circumstances. To see
you, you yourself, your own dear, sweet, loving face must always be
pleasant to me."

"And shan't you be glad to see him?"

"Yes, certainly, if he loves you."

"Of course he loves me."

"All that alone would be pleasant enough, Trichy. But what if there
should be circumstances which should still make us enemies; should
make your friends and my friends--friend, I should say, for I have
only one--should make them opposed to each other?"

"Circumstances! What circumstances?"

"You are going to be married, Trichy, to the man you love; are you
not?"

"Indeed, I am!"

"And it is not pleasant? is it not a happy feeling?"

"Pleasant! happy! yes, very pleasant; very happy. But, Mary, I am not
at all in such a hurry as he is," said Beatrice, naturally thinking
of her own little affairs.

"And, suppose I should wish to be married to the man that I love?"
Mary said this slowly and gravely, and as she spoke she looked her
friend full in the face.

Beatrice was somewhat astonished, and for the moment hardly
understood. "I am sure I hope you will, some day."

"No, Trichy; no, you hope the other way. I love your brother; I love
Frank Gresham; I love him quite as well, quite as warmly, as you love
Caleb Oriel."

"Do you?" said Beatrice, staring with all her eyes, and giving one
long sigh, as this new subject for sorrow was so distinctly put
before her.

"It that so odd?" said Mary. "You love Mr Oriel, though you have been
intimate with him hardly more than two years. Is it so odd that I
should love your brother, whom I have known almost all my life?"

"But, Mary, I thought it was always understood between us
that--that--I mean that you were not to care about him; not in the
way of loving him, you know--I thought you always said so--I have
always told mamma so as if it came from yourself."

"Beatrice, do not tell anything to Lady Arabella as though it came
from me; I do not want anything to be told to her, either of me or
from me. Say what you