iated with scorn--in fact refused
to entertain it seriously at all. Of course there may have been other
grounds, but the one you laid stress on was that I was lazy and
purposeless, and that if you ever did take up such a vocation it would
be to take care of some one you could respect. I don't say for an
instant that I approach to that altitude, but at least I may say I am no
longer an idler, that I have worked hard, and that I have every hope of
success. You see, too, that I want you more than I did then. I am a poor
artist and not the heir to a good estate. But as you are fond of
sacrificing yourself, that may not be altogether an objection. At any
rate, dear, I think I shall be able to keep you comfortably. I am not
sure I should ever have mustered up courage enough to have spoken on
this subject again, had it not been for yesterday. But that gave me a
little hope that you really had come to care about me a little, and that
possibly you might be willing to change your plans again in my favor."

"I did not think you really loved me then," she said. "I thought it was
just a passing fancy."

"You see it was not, dear. All these months that I have worked hard, it
was partly from the love of art and with the hope that I might be a
really great artist, but at the bottom of it all along has been the
thought of you and the determination that in one respect I would become
worthy of you."

"Don't talk like that, Cuthbert. I know now that I was a headstrong,
conceited girl, thinking I was strong when I was as weak as water. You
were right when you said I was not yet a woman, for I had never found
that I had a heart. It is I who am unworthy."

"Well, it is no question of worthiness now. The question is do you love
me as I love you."

"Are you sure you do, Cuthbert? I have thought all these months that you
had taken me at my word, and that it was but as a friend you regarded
me. Are you sure it is not gratitude for what little I did for you in
the hospital! Still more that it is not because I showed my feelings so
plainly the day before yesterday, and that it is from pity as well as
gratitude that you speak now."

"Then you were really a little jealous, Mary?"

"You know I was. It was shameful of me to show it, so shameful that I
have hated myself since. I know that after doing so, I ought to say
no--no a thousand times. I love you, Cuthbert, I love you; but I would
rather never marry you than feel it was out of pity that