mmutable laws of nature. Of one thing at least she is absolutely
certain--she can get on without me. I must be kept at too great a
distance to be officious."

This point settled, his own course became clear. He would be courtesy
itself and mind his own business.

"I fear I shall fail," murmured poor Madge, hiding her face in her
pillow, while suppressed sobs shook her frame.

CHAPTER XII

THE PROMPTINGS OF MISS WILDMERE'S HEART

Graydon slept very late the following morning. He found out that he
was tired, and resolved to indulge his craving for rest so far as
his suit to Miss Wildmere would permit. When he could do nothing to
promote his advantage he proposed to be indolence itself. He found
that his vexation had quite vanished, and, in cynical good-nature, he
was inclined to laugh at the state of affairs. "Let Madge indulge her
whims," he thought; "I may be the more free to pursue my purposes. Her
sister, of course, shares in Henry's prejudices against the Wildmeres,
and they would influence Madge adversely. All handsome girls are
jealous of each other, and, perhaps, if what I had so naturally hoped
and expected had proved true, I should have had more sisterly counsel
and opposition than would have been agreeable. Objections now would be
in poor taste, to say the least. If I'm not much mistaken I can speak
my mind to Stella Wildmere before many days pass; and, woman-nature
being such as it is, it may be just as well that I am not too intimate
with a sister who, after all, is not my sister. Stella might not see
it in the light that I should;" and so he came down at last, prepared
to adapt himself very philosophically to the new order of things.

"The world moves and changes," he soliloquized, smilingly, "and we
must move on and change with it."

He found Mr. and Mrs. Muir, with Madge and the children, ready for
church, and told them, laughingly, to "remember him if they did not
think him past praying for." During his breakfast he recalled the fact
that Madge was uncommonly well dressed. "She hasn't in externals," he
thought, "the provincial air that one might expect, although her
ideas are not only provincial, but prim, obtained, no doubt, from some
goody-good books that she has read in the remote region wherein she
has developed so remarkably. She has some stilted ideal of womanhood
which she is seeking to attain, and the more unnatural the ideal, the
more attractive, no doubt, it appears to her."

I