a's way, and had promised to herself that all things should be
happy to her as this man's sister-in-law. Acting then on this idea
merely because Ada had been beautiful she had gone to work,--and this
had come of it! In that minute that was allowed to her as the boiled
mutton was cooling on the dresser beneath her hand, all this passed
through her mind.

"Wrong done by me to Ada!" said the Captain.

"I have said it; but if you are a gentleman you will forget it. I
know that you are a gentleman,--a gallant man, such as few I think
exist anywhere. Captain Clayton, there are but two of us. Take the
best; take the fairest; take the sweetest. Let all this be as though
it had never been spoken. I will be such a sister to you as no man
ever won for himself. And Ada will be as loving a wife as ever graced
a man's home. Let it be so, and I will bless every day of your life."

"No," he said slowly, "I cannot let it be like that. I have learned
to love you and you only, and I thought that you had known it."

"Never!"

"I had thought so. It cannot be as you propose. I shall never speak
of your sister to a living man. I shall never whisper a word of her
regard even here in her own family. But I cannot change my heart as
you propose. Your sister is beautiful, and sweet, and good; but she
is not the girl who has crept into my heart, and made a lasting home
for herself there,--if the girl who has done so would but accept
it. Ada is not the girl whose brightness, whose bravery, whose wit
and ready spirit have won me. These things go, I think, without any
effort. I have known that there has been no attempt on your part; but
the thing has been done and I had hoped that you were aware of it. It
cannot now be undone. I cannot be passed on to another. Here, here,
here is what I want," and he put his two hands upon her shoulders.
"There is no other girl in all Ireland that can supply her place if
she be lost to me."

He had spoken very solemnly, and she had stood there in solemn mood
listening to him. By degrees the conviction had come upon her that he
was in earnest, and was not to be changed in his purpose by anything
that she could say to him. She had blundered, had blundered awfully.
She had thought that with a man beauty would be everything; but with
this man beauty had been nothing; nor had good temper and a sense of
duty availed anything. She rushed into the dining-room carrying the
boiled mutton with her, and he followed. What s