that domineering she couldn't call her soul her own. Finally he
couldn't get his own way over something and he just suicided by
jumping into the well. A good riddance--but of course the well was
spoiled. Flora could never abide the thought of using it again, poor
thing. _That's_ men for you.

"And there's that old Enoch Allan on his way to the station. He's
ninety if he's a day. You can't kill some folks with a meat axe. His
wife died twenty years ago. He'd been married when he was twenty so
they'd lived together for fifty years. She was a faithful,
hard-working creature and kept him out of the poorhouse, for he was a
shiftless soul, not lazy, exactly, but just too fond of sitting. But
he weren't grateful. She had a kind of bitter tongue and they did use
to fight scandalous. O' course it was all his fault. Well, she died,
and old Enoch and my father drove together to the graveyard. Old Enoch
was awful quiet all the way there and back, but just afore they got
home, he says solemnly to Father: 'You mayn't believe it, Henry, but
this is the happiest day of my life.' _That's_ men for you. His
brother, Scotty Allan, was the meanest man ever lived in these parts.
When his wife died she was buried with a little gold brooch in her
collar unbeknownst to him. When he found it out he went one night to
the graveyard and opened up the grave and the casket to get that
brooch."

"Oh, Aunt Philippa, that is a horrible story," I cried, recoiling with
a shiver over the gruesomeness of it.

"'Course it is, but what would you expect of a man?" retorted Aunt
Philippa.

Somehow, her stories began to affect me in spite of myself. There were
times when I felt very dreary. Perhaps Aunt Philippa was right.
Perhaps men possessed neither truth nor constancy. Certainly Mark had
forgotten me. I was ashamed of myself because this hurt me so much,
but I could not help it. I grew pale and listless. Aunt Philippa
sometimes peered at me sharply, but she held her peace. I was grateful
for this.

* * * * *

But one day a letter did come from Mark. I dared not read it until I
was safely in my own room. Then I opened it with trembling fingers.

The letter was a little stiff. Evidently Mark was feeling sore enough
over things. He made no reference to our quarrel or to my sojourn in
Prince Edward Island. He wrote that his firm was sending him to South
Africa to take charge of their interests there. He would leave in
t