and Lord Montague have made it up," and then
to encounter the contempt expressed for her as a "goose."

She was helpless in such toils. At times she felt actually abandoned of
any human aid, and in moods of despondency almost resolved to give up
the struggle. In the eyes of the world it was a good match, it would
make her mother happy, no doubt her father also; and was it not her duty
to put aside her repugnance, and go with the current of the social and
family forces that seemed irresistible?

Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them. This
invisible pressure is more difficult to stand against than individual
tyranny. There are no tragedies in our modern life so pathetic as the
ossification of women's hearts when love is crushed under the compulsion
of social and caste requirements. Everybody expected that Evelyn would
accept Lord Montague. It could be said that for her own reputation the
situation required this consummation of the intimacy of the season. And
the mother did not hesitate to put this interpretation upon the events
which were her own creation.

But with such a character as Evelyn, who was a constant puzzle to her
mother, this argument had very little weight compared with her own
sense of duty to her parents. Her somewhat ideal education made worldly
advantages of little force in her mind, and love the one priceless
possession of a woman's heart which could not be bartered. And yet might
there not be an element of selfishness in this--might not its sacrifice
be a family duty? Mrs. Mavick having found this weak spot in her
daughter's armor, played upon it with all her sweet persuasive skill and
show of tenderness.

"Of course, dear," she said, "you know what would make me happy. But
I do not want you to yield to my selfishness or even to your father's
ambition to see his only child in an exalted position in life. I can
bear the disappointment. I have had to bear many. But it is your own
happiness I am thinking of. And I think also of the cruel blow your
refusal will inflict upon a man whose heart is bound up in you."

"But I don't love him." The girl was very pale, and she spoke with an
air of weariness, but still with a sort of dogged persistence.

"You will in time. A young girl never knows her own heart, any more than
she knows the world."

"Mother, that isn't all. It would be a sin to him to pretend to give him
a heart that was not his. I can't; I can't."

"My dear child