y to decide. By all her habits of thought and feeling, by
all her prejudices, by all her religious life, she was drawn toward the
peaceful and perhaps prosperous life that opened before her as the wife
of Henry Stevens, living in her native village, near to her mother,
surrounded by her old friends, and with the best of men for a husband.
But by all the clamor of her intellectual nature for something better
than her narrow life, by all her joy in the conversation of
D'Entremont, the only man her equal in culture she had ever known, she
felt drawn to be the wife of the marquis. Yet if there were roses,
there were thorns in such a path. The village girl knew that _madame la
marquise_ must lead a life very different from any she had known. She
must bear with a husband whose mind was ever in a state of unrest and
skepticism, and she must meet the great world.

In truth there were two Priscillas. There was the Priscilla that her
neighbors knew, the Priscilla that went to church, the Priscilla that
taught Primary School No. 3. There was the other Priscilla, that read
Chaucer and Shakespeare, Moliere and De Stael. With this Priscilla New
Geneva had nothing to do. And it was the doubleness of her nature that
caused her indecision.

Then her conscience came in. Because there might be worldly attractions
on one side, she leaned to the other. To reject a poor suitor and
accept a rich and titled one, had something of treason in it.

At the end of a week she sent for them both. Henry Stevens's flatboat
had been ready to start for New Orleans for two days. And Challeau,
Lafort & Company were expecting the marquis, who was in some sort a
ward of theirs. Henry Stevens and the Marquis Antoine d'Entremont
walked side by side, in an awkward silence, to the little vine-covered
cottage. Of that interview I do not know enough to write fully. But I
know that Priscilla said such words as these:

"This is an awful responsibility. I suppose a judge trembles when he
must pass sentence of death. But I must make a decision that involves
the happiness of both my friends and myself. I can not do it now. Will
you wait until you both return in the spring? I have a reason that I
can not explain for wishing this matter postponed. It will be decided
for me, perhaps."

I do not know that she said just these words, and I know she did not
say them all at once. But so they parted. And Miss Nancy More, who
retailed ribbons and scandal, and whose only effo