d that way."

"What way?"

"Just as I told you. She said she'd always be the same as a sister to
me, and that when I grew older and wiser I 'd see that there should
never have been any closer tie between us. I can't repeat the words she
used, but it was something to this purport,--that when a woman has been
lecturing a man about his line of life, and trying to make something out
of him, against the grain of his own indolence, she can't turn suddenly
round and fall in love, even though _he_ was in love with _her_."

"She has a good head on her shoulders, she has," muttered M'Gruder.

"I'd rather she had a little more heart," said Tony, peevishly.

"That may be; but she's right, after all."

"And why is she right? why should n't she see me as I am now, and not
persist in looking at me as I used to be?"

"Just because it's not her humor, I suppose; at least, I don't know any
better reason."

Tony wheeled suddenly away from his companion, and took two or three
turns alone. At last he said, "She never told me so, but I suppose the
truth was, all this time she _did_ think me very presumptuous; and that
what her mother did not scruple to say to me in words, Alice had often
said to her own heart."

"You are rich enough now to make you her equal."

"And I 'd rather be as poor as I used to be and have the hopes that have
left me."

M'Gruder gave a heavy sigh, and, turning away, leaned on the bulwark and
hid his face. "I'm a bad comforter, Tony," said he at last, and speaking
with difficulty. "I did n't mean to have told you, for you have cares
enough of your own, but I may as well tell you,--read that." As he
spoke, he drew out a letter and handed it to him; and Tony, stooping
down beside the binnacle light, read it over twice.

"This is clear and clean beyond me," exclaimed he, as he stood up. "From
any other girl I could understand it; but Dolly,--Dolly Stewart, who
never broke her word in her life,--I never knew her tell a lie as a
little child. What can she mean by it?"

"Just what she says--there--she thought she could marry me, and she
finds she cannot."

"But why?"

"Ah! that's more than she likes to tell me,--more, mayhap, than she 'd
tell any one."

"Have you any clew to it?"

"None,--not the slightest."

"Is your sister-in-law in it? Has she said or written anything that
Dolly could resent?"

"No; don't you mark what she says at the end? 'You must not try to
lighten any blame you would lay on m