assurance of success I doubt if he would ever
mention the subject to you. But you know what it would mean to him. I
shall never urge you against your will, my dear," she repeated with real
feeling,--"you know that without my telling you; but I do feel my own
responsibility so keenly! He was a boy of such promise, as he is to-day
a man of rare capabilities if the right one could only guide him in
making use of his talents. Haven't you felt this yourself, my dear, when
you have been with him?"

Merry passed her hand wearily over her forehead. She could not
understand why she did not at once protest against what she felt to be
an unnatural suggestion. Still, the constancy of the lover, the sympathy
which she had felt for Hamlen since their first meeting in Bermuda, and
her own state of uncertainty combined in a confused way in the girl's
mind. Huntington's face was before her as her mother spoke of Hamlen,
his voice was in her ears, his words echoed in her heart: "I found the
girl too late!" Mrs. Thatcher thought Merry's hesitation came from a
consideration of the arguments just advanced, but what Huntington had
said formed the greatest argument of all. This closed for her all hope
of happiness coming as a direct response to the craving of her heart,
and left her only the possibility of attaining it through the indirect
means of giving happiness to some one else.

"That is what he would do," she whispered; and the thought brought
comfort.

"Haven't you felt this?" Mrs. Thatcher repeated at length, to recall the
girl to herself. "You have always seemed so much more at home with older
men, and he must have appealed to you. He would respond so quickly to
the sympathy you could give him."

"Wouldn't it be wrong to marry a man you didn't love?" Merry asked
quietly.

"But you respect him, don't you, dear? And respect is the first step
toward love. I wouldn't have you marry him unless that came, but there
is plenty of time before the wedding need be considered."

"I am very unhappy!" Merry exclaimed suddenly, with a little catch in
her voice.

"Unhappy, my dear!" Mrs. Thatcher cried with real sympathy, drawing the
girl's head upon her shoulder. "Why should you be unhappy? Tell Mother."

"I don't know, myself," Merry admitted, crying softly. "I've been
unhappy ever so long. Now and then things have seemed to straighten out,
but never for long at a time. Now I'm more unsettled than I have ever
been, and I don't feel as if