nd tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached
in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen that
it must some time end in this way. Of course she must have known that
Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of
a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless
and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the
bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as _she_
did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little
things that Sally might forget.

After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than
herself,--so much more bustling and energetic, she would make altogether
a better housekeeper, and doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it
was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his
sister?--his confidant for all his childhood?--and why should he shut up
his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being
jealous,--that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of
self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses;
and when she came, left them alone together while she busied herself in
hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally,
which he was sure to improve into protracted visits; and in short, no
young match-maker ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two
chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally.

So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under full sail, with
prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many hours that her two best
friends were together, tried heroically to persuade herself that she was
not unhappy. She said to herself constantly that she never had loved
Moses other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the fact to
her own mind with a pertinacity which might have led her to suspect the
reality of the fact, had she had experience enough to look closer. True,
it was rather lonely, she said, but that she was used to,--she always
had been and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in return as
she loved; which sentence she did not analyze very closely, or she might
have remembered Mr. Adams and one or two others, who had professed more
for her than she had found herself able to return. That general
proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to the bottom, to
have specific relation to somebody whose name never appears in