of love I have
dreamed about, and it seems silly for an old maid to even talk of such a
thing. But love to my mind ought to be the everything of life! If I
loved a man----" Here she suddenly paused, and a wave of colour flushed
her cheeks. Helmsley never took his eyes off her face.

"Yes?" he said, tentatively--"Well!--go on--if you loved a man?----"

"If I loved a man, David,"--she continued, slowly, clasping her hands
meditatively behind her back, and looking thoughtfully into the glowing
centre of the fire--"I should love him so completely that I should never
think of anything in which he had not the first and greatest share. I
should see his kind looks in every ray of sunshine--I should hear his
loving voice in every note of music,--if I were to read a book alone, I
should wonder which sentence in it would please _him_ the most--if I
plucked a flower, I should ask myself if he would like me to wear it,--I
should live _through_ him and _for_ him--he would be my very eyes and
heart and soul! The hours would seem empty without him----"

She broke off with a little sob, and her eyes brimmed over with tears.

"Why Mary! Mary, my dear!" murmured Helmsley, stretching out his hand to
touch her--"Don't cry!"

"I'm not crying, David!" and a rainbow smile lighted her face--"I'm only
just--_feeling_! It's like when I read a little verse of poetry that is
very sad and sweet, I get tears into my eyes--and when I talk about
love--especially now that I shall never know what it is, something rises
in my throat and chokes me----"

"But you do know what it is,"--said Helmsley, powerfully moved by the
touching simplicity of her confession of loneliness--"There isn't a more
loving heart than yours in the world, I'm sure!"

She came and knelt down again beside him.

"Oh yes, I've a loving heart!" she said--"But that's just the worst of
it! I can love, but no one loves or ever will love me--now. I'm past the
age for it. No woman over thirty can expect to be loved by a lover, you
know! Romance is all over--and one 'settles down,' as they say. I've
never quite 'settled'--there's always something restless in me. You're
such a dear old man, David, and so kind!--I can speak to you just as if
you were my father--and I daresay you will not think it very wrong or
selfish of me if I say I have longed to be loved sometimes! More than
that, I've wished it had pleased God to send me a husband and
children--I should have dearly liked to hold