more has made me so unhappy,"
said Miss Marrable, sadly.

"It could not be helped, Aunt Sarah. I tried my best, but it could
not be helped. Of course I have been very, very unhappy myself."

"I don't pretend to understand it."

"And yet it is so easily understood!" said Mary, pleading hard for
herself. "I did not love him, and--"

"But you had accepted him, Mary."

"I know I had. It is so natural that you should think that I have
behaved badly."

"I have not said so, my dear."

"I know that, Aunt Sarah; but if you think so,--and of course you
do,--write and ask Janet Fenwick. She will tell you everything. You
know how devoted she is to Mr. Gilmore. She would have done anything
for him. But even she will tell you that at last I could not help
it. When I was so very wretched I thought that I would do my best
to comply with other people's wishes. I got a feeling that nothing
signified for myself. If they had told me to go into a convent or to
be a nurse in a hospital I would have gone. I had nothing to care
for, and if I could do what I was told perhaps it might be best."

"But why did you not go on with it, my dear?"

"It was impossible--after Walter had written to me."

"But Walter is to marry Edith Brownlow."

"No, dear aunt; no. Walter is to marry me. Don't look like that, Aunt
Sarah. It is true;--it is, indeed." She had now dragged her chair
close to her aunt's seat upon the sofa, so that she could put her
hands upon her aunt's knees. "All that about Miss Brownlow has been a
fable."

"Parson John told me that it was fixed."

"It is not fixed. The other thing is fixed. Parson John tells many
fables. He is to come here."

"Who is to come here?"

"Walter,--of course. He is to be here,--I don't know how soon; but I
shall hear from him. Dear aunt, you must be good to him;--indeed you
must. He is your cousin just as much as mine."

"I'm not in love with him, Mary."

"But I am, Aunt Sarah. Oh dear, how much I am in love with him! It
never changed in the least, though I struggled, and struggled not to
think of him. I broke his picture and burned it;--and I would not
have a scrap of his handwriting;--I would not have near me anything
that he had even spoken of. But it was no good. I could not get away
from him for an hour. Now I shall never want to get away from him
again. As for Mr. Gilmore, it would have come to the same thing at
last, had I never heard another word from Walter Marrable. I could
not h