ce would not be a
difficult one."

Her voice began to tremble, but she went on vehemently: "Why
do you ask my opinion at all? It can make no difference to
you; you have gone your own way these five years past without
much regard for my wishes, one way or another; and since your
return home, you have hardly spoken to me, much less consulted
me----"

It was at that moment that Madelon, kneeling at Madge's
bedside, began to sing, and the sound of her voice ringing
through the open window of her little upper room, Graham
involuntarily stopped, and lost the thread of Maria's speech.
She perceived it at once.

"Ah! yes, that is it," she cried passionately, hardly knowing
what she said. "Do you think I do not see, that I cannot
understand? Do I not know who it is you care to listen to now,
to talk to, to consult? Ask her what she thinks, ask
Madeleine's advice----"

"Be silent!" cried Horace, with sudden anger, "I will not have
Madeleine's name mentioned between us in that way. Forgive me,
Maria," he went on, more calmly, "but this sort of talk is
useless; though, if I cared to recriminate, I might perhaps
ask you, how it happens that Mr. Morris comes here so
frequently."

"Mr. Morris!" faltered Maria; "who told you----"

Her momentary indignation melted into tears and sobs; she
turned, and put out her hand to Graham, as they stood together
under the big plane-tree.

"Oh, Horace," she said, "I am very unhappy, and if you blame
me, I cannot help it--I daresay I deserve it."

"My poor Molly," he answered, taking her hand in his. "Why
should I blame you? and why are you unhappy? Let me help you--
unless, indeed, I am altogether the cause of it all."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Vavasour, left all alone in the sitting-room,
stitched away in the lamplight, looking out from time to time
into the dewy garden, where the two figures were pacing up and
down. The murmur of their voices reached her, and presently
she also heard Madelon singing up above, and then the two went
away out of hearing, and she could distinguish nothing in the
silence but the rustling of her own work and the soft,
inarticulate sounds of the early night. She could guess pretty
well what the result of that talk would be. That very
afternoon, going to Maria's room on her return home, she had
found the girl in an agony of weeping, and had learnt from her
that Mr. Morris had just made her an offer, and that she had
been obliged to tell him that she was already en