and spoke to her
with a strength for which she had not hitherto given Parson John
credit. Her Aunt Sarah was very gentle with her, but never veered
from her opinion that the engagement must of necessity be abandoned.
Mr. Fenwick wrote to her a letter full of love and advice, and Mrs.
Fenwick made a journey to Loring to discuss the matter with her. The
discussion between them was very long. "If you are saying this on my
account," said Mary, "it is quite useless."

"On what other account? Mr. Gilmore? Indeed, indeed, I am not
thinking of him. He is out of my mind altogether. I say it because I
know it is impossible that you and your cousin should be married, and
because such an engagement is destructive to both the parties."

"For myself," said Mary, "it can make no difference."

"It will make the greatest difference. It would wear you to pieces
with a deferred hope. There is nothing so killing, so terrible, so
much to be avoided. And then for him!-- How is a man, thrown about on
the world as he will be, to live in such a condition."

The upshot of it all was that Mary wrote a letter to her cousin
proposing to surrender her engagement, and declaring that it would be
best for them both that he should agree to accept her surrender. That
plan which she had adopted before, of leaving all the responsibility
to him, would not suffice. She had come to perceive during these
weary discussions that if a way out of his bondage was to be given to
Walter Marrable it must come from her action and not from his. She
had intended to be generous when she left everything to him; but it
was explained to her, both by her aunt and Mrs. Fenwick, that her
generosity was of a kind which he could not use. It was for her to
take the responsibility upon herself; it was for her to make the
move; it was, in short, for her to say that the engagement should be
over.

The very day that Mrs. Fenwick left her she wrote the letter, and
Captain Marrable had it in his pocket when he went down to bid a
last farewell to his father. It had been a sad, weary, tear-laden
performance,--the writing of that letter. She had resolved that
no sign of a tear should be on the paper, and she had rubbed the
moisture away from her eyes a dozen times during the work lest it
should fall. There was but little of intended pathos in it; there
were no expressions of love till she told him at the end that she
would always love him dearly; there was no repining,--no mention o