true, and I had really refused to be John
Hollingford's wife.

After tea he left us early, saying he must
start for Hillsbro' at four in the morning.
Mopsie fell asleep, and Jane absorbed herself in
her books. Mrs. Hollingford and I held some
embroidery in our hands, but my fingers trembled
so that the stitches went all wrong. Now and
again, glancing up, I encountered long troubled
looks from Mrs. Hollingford. She had seen
that something was amiss between me and John,
and I guessed that her mind was at work with
fears. I could not bear it; I thought it was
not fair after what I had done. For the first
and last time I felt angry and impatient with
the dear old lady. Would she herself, in her
own young days, have sacrificed as much?
Jane shut up her books at last, and carried
Mopsie off with her to bed, and Mrs. Hollingford
and I were left sitting facing one another.

"Mrs. Hollingford," I said, dropping my
work with almost a sob, "don't look at me like
that. I cannot bear it, and I do not deserve
it."

What made me say it I cannot think. The
moment before I spoke I had no intention of
speaking. Mrs. Hollingford dropped her work
in dismay.

"My love," she said, "what do you mean?
I do not understand. What do my looks say
that you cannot bear?"

"Oh, Mrs. Hollingford," I said, covering my
burning cheeks with my hands, "you must
know what I mean. You look at me, and look
at me, and I see what is in your mind. How
can I help it?"

"My dear," said she, "is it anything about
John?"

"Yes," said I, desperately, "it is about
John. You think I want to take him from you,
and I do not, and I never will, and I have told
him so. I am going away to London with my
friends the Tyrrells, and I will never trouble
you any more."

I was rather blind by this time, and I was
not sure of what part of the room I was in; but
Mrs. Hollingford had come to my side, and she
put her arms round about me and fondled my
head on her breast.

"My dear," she said, "and is this the secret
that has made the trouble between us? I
never thought that you wanted lo take him
from me; on the contrary, I feared that you
might be too young to understand his worth.
I dreaded sorrow and suffering for my son,
nothing else."

My face was hidden in her motherly embrace.
I could not speak for some moments, and I
thought my heart had stopped beating. At last
I whispered:

"Oh, Mrs. Hollingford, I have made a great
mistake. Can it be that you really——"

"Will have you for a daughter?" she asked,
smiling. "Gladly, thankfully, my darling, if it
be for your happiness. But you must not
decide hastily; there are great disadvantages
which you must consider, and I, as your
guardian and friend, must point them out to you.
I must forget my son's interests in the faithful
discharge of my trust. John has a cloud upon
his name."

"Don't, don't!" I said, "if he had a hundred
clouds upon his name it would be all the same
to me."

"Then you love him well?" she said,
tenderly, sighing and smiling at the same time.

"I think I do," I said; "but that is only a
misfortune, for you know I have refused him."

"Well," she said, cheerfully, "perhaps it is
for the best. You must go to London with
your friends, and test your feeling by absence
and the society of others. If you remain
unattracted by those who are better placed in the
world, I think John will try again, in spite of
his pride. I know I should in his place," she
said, lifting up my disturbed face, and looking
in it with a half quizzical fondness.

I answered by throwing my arms round her
neck in a long tearful embrace, and after that
we sat long by the fireside talking the matter
over. The consequence was, oddly enough,
that I went up-stairs to bed feeling so extremely
sober that, before I laid my head upon my
pillow, I had begun to doubt whether I cared
for John Hollingford at all. It was not that I
shrank from what his mother had called the
"sacrifices" I should make in becoming his
wife. I never even thought of them. I had
found too much happiness at Hillsbro' Farm
to be able to realise their existence. But I had
a superstition that I should feel very joyfully
excited at all I had learned that evening; first,
that John really loved me, and, secondly, that
his mother was ready to take me to her heart.
Yet I only felt sobered to the last degree, and
exceedingly afraid of seeing John again. I
heard him driving away from the door before
daybreak, and I found myself hoping that he
might not come back for a week.

The next day I found myself in the same
mood. I felt so grave and quiet that I made
up my mind that I could not have that wonderful
love for John which I believed to be the
duty of a wife. I thought I had better
write to Grace, and arrange about going with
her to London. Then I grew miserable at the
thought of leaving the farm, and wished I had
never seen it. For three days I tormented
myself thus, and then there came a shock which
brought me cruelly to my senses.

On the fourth day after John had left us, I
was walking up and down the frosty avenue
just as the evening was coming on. The sun
was setting redly behind the brown wood, and
blushing over the whitened fields and hedgerows.
A man came up the avenue and pulled
off his hat as he approached me. I recognised
in him an Irish labourer whom I had seen working
in the gardens at the hall.

"Beg pardon, miss!" said he, "but be you
Miss Margery Dacre?"

"Yes, Pat," said I. "This is a fine evening,
is it not? What do you want with me?"

"Oh then, a fine evenin' it is, glory be to
God!" said Pat; "but all the same, Mrs.
Beatty is mortial anxious for you to step over to