long enough, and, as he told his
wife more than once, was making an ass of herself. Mrs. Fenwick was
not quite so hard in her judgment, but she also was tempted to be a
little angry. She loved her friend Mary a great deal better than she
loved Mr. Gilmore, but she was thoroughly convinced that Mary could
not do better than accept a man whom she owned that she liked,--whom
she, at any rate, liked so well that she had not as yet rejected him.
Therefore, although Mary was going, they were, both of them, rather
savage with her.

The Monday passed by, also very quietly, and Mr. Gilmore did not come
to them, but he had sent a note to tell them that he would walk down
on the Tuesday evening to say good-bye to Miss Lowther. Early on
the Wednesday Mr. Fenwick was to drive her to Westbury, whence the
railway would take her round by Chippenham and Swindon to Loring. On
the Tuesday morning she was very melancholy. Though she knew that it
was right to go away, she greatly regretted that it was necessary.
She was angry with herself for not having better known her own mind,
and though she was quite sure that were Mr. Gilmore to repeat his
offer to her that moment, she would not accept it, nevertheless she
thought ill of herself because she would not do so. "I do believe,"
she said to herself, "that I shall never like any man better." She
knew well enough that if she was never brought to love any man, she
never ought to marry any man; but she was not quite sure whether
Janet was not right in telling her that she had formed erroneous
notions of the sort of love she ought to feel for the man whom she
should resolve to accept. Perhaps it was true that that kind of
adoration which Janet entertained for her husband was a feeling which
came after marriage--a feeling which would spring up in her own heart
as soon as she was the man's own wife, the mistress of his house, the
mother of his children, the one human being for whose welfare he was
solicitous beyond that of all others. And this man did love her. She
had no doubt about that. And she was unhappy, too, because she felt
that she had offended his friends, and that they thought that she was
not treating their friend well.

"Janet," she said, as they were again sitting out on the lawn, on
that Tuesday afternoon, "I am almost sorry that I came here at all."

"Don't say that, dear."

"I have spent some of the happiest days of my life here, but the
visit, on the whole, has been unfortuna