meant?"

"Why, of course!"

He stared at her hopelessly.

"O my son!" she said, for all comment on the situation.

"Don't reproach me, mother! I couldn't stand it."

"No. I didn't mean to do that. But how--HOW could it happen?"

"I don't know. When she first told me that they had understood it so,
I laughed--almost--it was so far from me. But now when you seem to
have had the same idea--Did you all think so?"

"Yes."

They remained looking at each other. Then Mrs. Corey began: "It did
pass through my mind once--that day I went to call upon them--that it
might not be as we thought; but I knew so little of--of----"

"Penelope," Corey mechanically supplied.

"Is that her name?--I forgot--that I only thought of you in relation to
her long enough to reject the idea; and it was natural after our seeing
something of the other one last year, that I might suppose you had
formed some--attachment----"

"Yes; that's what they thought too. But I never thought of her as
anything but a pretty child. I was civil to her because you wished it;
and when I met her here again, I only tried to see her so that I could
talk with her about her sister."

"You needn't defend yourself to ME, Tom," said his mother, proud to say
it to him in his trouble. "It's a terrible business for them, poor
things," she added. "I don't know how they could get over it. But, of
course, sensible people must see----"

"They haven't got over it. At least she hasn't. Since it's happened,
there's been nothing that hasn't made me prouder and fonder of her! At
first I WAS charmed with her--my fancy was taken; she delighted me--I
don't know how; but she was simply the most fascinating person I ever
saw. Now I never think of that. I only think how good she is--how
patient she is with me, and how unsparing she is of herself. If she
were concerned alone--if I were not concerned too--it would soon end.
She's never had a thought for anything but her sister's feeling and
mine from the beginning. I go there,--I know that I oughtn't, but I
can't help it,--and she suffers it, and tries not to let me see that
she is suffering it. There never was any one like her--so brave, so
true, so noble. I won't give her up--I can't. But it breaks my heart
when she accuses herself of what was all MY doing. We spend our time
trying to reason out of it, but we always come back to it at last, and
I have to hear her morbidly blaming herself. Oh!"

Doubtless Mrs.