he summer at all. I shall go home in the
fall more jaded and worn out than when I came. To think that we should
have this beautiful place, where we could be so happy and comfortable,
if it were not for having this abnormal situation under our nose and
eyes all the time!"

"Abnormal? I don't call it abnormal," I began, and I was sensible of my
wife's thoughts leaving her own injuries for my point of view so swiftly
that I could almost hear them whir.

"Not abnormal!" she gasped.

"No; only too natural. Isn't it perfectly natural for an invalid like
that to want to keep her daughter with her; and isn't it perfectly
natural for a daughter, with a New England sense of duty, to yield to
her wish? You might say that she could get married and live at home, and
then she and Glendenning could both devote themselves--"

"No, no," my wife broke in, "that wouldn't do. Marriage is marriage; and
it puts the husband and wife with each other first; when it doesn't,
it's a miserable mockery."

"Even when there's a sick mother in the case?"

"A thousand sick mothers wouldn't alter the case. And that's what they
all three instinctively know, and they're doing the only thing they can
do."

"Then I don't see what we're complaining of."

"Complaining of? We're complaining of its being all wrong and--romantic.
Her mother has asked more than she had any right to ask, and Miss
Bentley has tried to do more than she can perform, and that has made
them hate each other."

"Should you say _hate_, quite?"

"It must come to that, if Mrs. Bentley lives."

"Then let us hope she--"

"My dear!" cried Mrs. March, warningly.

"Oh, come, now!" I retorted. "Do you mean to say that you haven't
thought how very much it would simplify the situation if--"

"Of course I have! And that is the wicked part of it. It's that that is
wearing me out. It's perfectly hideous!"

"Well, fortunately we're not actively concerned in the affair, and we
needn't take any measures in regard to it. We are mere spectators, and
as I see it the situation is not only inevitable for Mrs. Bentley, but
it has a sort of heroic propriety for Miss Bentley."

"And Glendenning?"

"Oh, Glendenning isn't provided for in my scheme."

"Then I can tell you that your scheme, Basil, is worse than worthless."

"I didn't brag of it, my dear," I said, meekly enough. "I'm sorry for
him, but I can't help him. He must provide for himself out of his
religion."

IX.

It was, ind