promised John to fish with him to-morrow, but I shall come over
on Monday or Tuesday, and stay till I go back to town. I hope she
will at any rate let me speak to her." The father said he would do
his best, but that that obstinate resumption of her weeds on her
brother's very wedding day had nearly broken his heart.

When the Fletchers were back at Longbarns, the two ladies were very
severe on her. "It was downright obstinacy," said the squire's wife,
"and it almost makes me think it would serve her right to leave her
as she is."

"It's pride," said the old lady. "She won't give way. I said ever so
much to her,--but it's no use. I feel it the more because we have all
gone so much out of the way to be good to her after she had made such
a fool of herself. If it goes on much longer, I shall never forgive
her again."

"You'll have to forgive her, mother," said her eldest son, "let her
sins be what they may,--or else you'll have to quarrel with Arthur."

"I do think it's very hard," said the old lady, taking herself out of
the room. And it was hard. The offence in the first instance had been
very great, and the forgiveness very difficult. But Mrs. Fletcher had
lived long enough to know that when sons are thoroughly respectable a
widowed mother has to do their bidding.

Emily, through the whole wedding day, and the next day, and day after
day, remembered Mrs. Fletcher's words. "There are some who will
never be light-hearted again till they see you smile." And the old
woman had named her dearest friends, and had ended by naming Arthur
Fletcher. She had then acknowledged to herself that it was her duty
to smile in order that others might smile also. But how is one to
smile with a heavy heart? Should one smile and lie? And how long and
to what good purpose can such forced contentment last? She had marred
her whole life. In former days she had been proud of all her virgin
glories,--proud of her intellect, proud of her beauty, proud of that
obeisance which beauty, birth, and intellect combined, exact from all
comers. She had been ambitious as to her future life;--had intended
to be careful not to surrender herself to some empty fool;--had
thought herself well qualified to pick her own steps. And this had
come of it! They told her that she might still make everything right,
annul the past and begin the world again as fresh as ever,--if she
would only smile and study to forget! Do it for the sake of others,
they said, and t