le happy too--I can tell
you that."

He could hardly speak plainly. Evidently there was on him an
overmastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, which
for the moment even eclipsed his young passion. It was but vaguely
explained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of his
afternoon's experience.

But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him.

"I say!" he cried; "you're not angry with me?"

She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut the
pages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece. The little mechanical
action seemed gradually to restore her to self-control.

"I don't think I can talk about it," she said at last, with an effort;
"not now."

"Oh! I know," said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress;
"you've been upset, and had such a lot of trouble. But I--"

She laid her hand on his shoulder. He thought he had never seen her so
beautiful, pale as she was.

"I'm not the least angry. I'll tell you so--another day. Now, are you
going to Betty?"

The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering to
the stimulus of the word.

"They'll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty," he said steadily,
buttoning his coat; "they'd gone out calling somewhere. Oh! she'll lead
me a wretched life, will Betty, before she's done!"

A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella's white lips.

"Probably Betty knows her business," she said; "if she's quite
unmanageable, send her to me."

In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissed
it--would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world. But she
laughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her he
departed.

She sank into her chair and never moved for long. The April sun was just
sinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of the
library came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers. There was
an endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the wood
fire. An hour before, her mood had been at open war with the spring, and
with all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it.
Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all the
vast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being.

She gave herself up to it, in a trance interwoven with all the loveliest
and deepest things she had ever felt--with her memory of Hallin, with
her