illiest girl she
had ever known.

Now the child's words of prophecy, spoken from the oldest reasoning
in the world, that of established sequence and precedent, did not
recur to Charlotte, but she was fulfilling them.

Ina's marriage and perhaps the natural principle of growth had
brought about a change in her. Charlotte had sat by herself and
thought a good deal after Ina had gone, and naturally she thought of
the possibility of her own marriage. Ina had married; of course she
might. But her emotions were very much in abeyance to her affections,
and the conditions came before the dreams were possible.

"I shall never marry anybody who will take me far away from papa!"
said Charlotte. "Perhaps I shall be less of a burden to poor papa if
I am married, but I shall never go far away."

It followed in Charlotte's reasoning that it must be a man in
Banbridge. There had been no talk of their leaving the place. Of
course she knew that their stay in one locality was usually short,
but here they were now, and it must be a man in Banbridge. She
thought of a number of the crudely harmless young men of the village;
there were one or two not so crude, but not so harmless, who held her
thoughts a little longer, but she decided that she did not want any
of them, even if they should want her. Then again the face of
Randolph Anderson flashed out before her eyes as it had done before.
Charlotte, with her inborn convictions, laughed at herself, but the
face remained.

"There isn't another man in this town to compare with him," she said
to herself, "and he is a gentleman, too." Then she fell to
remembering every word he had ever said to her, and all the
expressions his face had ever taken on with regard to her, and she
found that she could recall them all. Then she reflected how he had
trusted them, and had never failed to fill their orders, when all the
other tradesmen in Banbridge had refused, and that they must be owing
him.

"I shouldn't wonder if we were owing him nearly twenty-five dollars,"
Charlotte said to herself, and for the first time a thrill of shame
and remorse at the consideration of debt was over her. She had heard
his story. "There he had to give up his law practice because he could
not make a living, and go into the grocery business, and here we are
taking his goods and not paying him," thought she. "It is too bad." A
feeling of indignation at herself and her family, and of pity for
Anderson came over her. She ma