been growing weaker and weaker, but there
were times when she plucked up wonderfully,
and when she would talk of things
present, ay, and of things future, as though
she had years of life to run. The girls
encouraged her to talk. Dr. Osborne had
told them that she must be " roused" as
much as possible, and they would sit with
her and chatter for hours, the old lady
taking no inconsiderable share in the
conversation. It was astonishing with what
unanimity they had hitherto kept off the
subject of the marriage, the very topic
which one might have imagined would have
been the first they would have discussed,
but whenever they came near it, whenever
they grew " warm," as children say in the
old-fashioned game, they seemed by tacit
instinct bound to draw away and leave it
untouched. At last one day, after the
married couple had been a week absent,
Mrs. Ashurst said, quietly, "Maud, my
dear! weren't you very much astonished
when you heard your uncle was going to
marry my Marian?"

"No, dear Mrs. Ashurst. Though I'm
not very old, I've lived too long to be
astonished at anything, and certainly that
did not surprise me!"

"It did me!" said Gertrude, for once
venturing on an independent remark.

"And why did it surprise you, Gerty?"
asked the old lady, already smiling at the
quaint reply which she always expected
from Gertrude.

"Because I didn't think uncle was so
silly!" Gertrude blurted out. " At least, I
don't mean that exactly; don't misunderstand
me, dear Mrs. Ashurst, but I never
thought that uncle would marry again at
all; such an idea never entered our heads,
did it, Maud?" But Maud declining to
play chorus, Gertrude continued: " And if
I had thought of such a thing, I should
always have set uncle down as marrying
some one more his own age, and—and that
kind of thing!"

"There is certainly a great disparity of
years between them," said Mrs. Ashurst,
with a sigh. " I trust that won't work to
the disadvantage of my poor, dear girl!"

"I don't think you need fear that, dear
old friend!" said Maud; and then thinking
that her tone of voice might have been
hard, she laid her hand on the old lady's
shoulder and added, " Miss Ash—I mean
Mrs. Creswell, you know, is wise beyond her
years! She has already had the management
of a large household, which, as I
understand, she conducted excellently; and
even did she show a few shortcomings,
uncle is the last man to notice them!"

"Yes, my dear, I know; but I didn't
mean that! I was selfishly thinking
whether Marian had done rightly in accepting
a man so much older than herself! She did
it for my sake, poor child—she did it for my
sake!" And the old lady burst into tears.

"Don't cry, dear!" said Gertrude. "You
are not to blame, I'm sure, whatever has
happened."

"How can you make yourself so
perfectly ridiculous, Gertrude!" said strong-
minded Maud. " No one is to blame about
anything! And, my dear Mrs. Ashurst, I
don't think, if I were you, I should look upon
your daughter's present proceeding as such
an act of self-sacrifice. Depend upon it she
is very well pleased at her new dignity and
position." Maud knew that the Creswells
were only " new people," but she could not
sit by and hear them patronised by a
schoolmaster's widow.

"Well, my dear, very likely," said the
old lady, meekly; " though she might have
been a baronet's lady if she had only
chosen. I'm sure young Sir Joseph
Attride would have proposed to her, with a
little more encouragement; and though my
poor husband always said he had pudding in
his head instead of brains, that wouldn't
have been any just cause or impediment.
You never heard about Sir Joseph,
Maud?"

"No; Miss Ashurst never spoke to us
of any of her conquests," said Maud, with
something of a sneer.

"Well, my dear, Marian was never one
to say much, you know; but I'm sure she
might have done as well as any girl in the
county, for the matter of that. There was
Sir Joseph, and young Mr. Peacock, before
he went up to live in London, and a young
German, who was over here to learn
English—Burckhardt his name was, and
I think his friends were counts, or some-
thing of that kind, in their own country—
oh, quite grand, I assure you!"

"I wonder whether uncle knows of all
these former rivals?" asked Gertrude.

"No, my dear, of course he doesn't, and
of course Marian would not be such a goose
as to tell him. I think I'll sleep for a bit
now, dears; I'm tired."

They kissed her, and left the room; but
betore the old lady had dropped off she
said to herself, " I wasn't going to let them
crow over me, or think that my Marian
couldn't have had her pick and choice of a
husband, if she'd been so minded."