"Then you did not say ' yes' at once, Jenny?"

"How could I? I was so confused that I should
not even have asked for time to think over it, if
he had not made the suggestion."

It was very plain that Jane was not in love;
but then how odd if he were! I had seen them
together the day before this, and Mr. Forbes, for
a young man, was a cool lover, to say the least
of it. Despite her inexperience in such matters,
Jane felt some surprise too, and she expressed it
witli a mixture of sauciness and simplicity which
she often displayed with me, but which she had
certainly never showed to Mr. Forbes.

"Do you know, cousin William," she said,
looking up at me, " I must be a very fascinating
person after all. I am not pretty, I am twenty-
three, I am not rich, I am quiet, and yet Mr.
Forbes, who has only to pick and choose, is
smitten with me."

"How do you know he is smitten?" I
inquired.

I repented the question at once; but, luckily,
Jane only laughed.

"Why should he want to marry me if he were
not smitten?" she asked, gaily.

"Ah! to be sure. And you are smitten, of
course, Jenny?"

"No," was her rather serious reply. " I
admire Mr. Forbes, and I am grateful for his
affection; but though I hope to be very happy
with him, I am not what is called in love, cousin
William. That is not in my way, I suppose."

And Jenny just uttered a little tremulous sigh
of regret, and looked like an ancient maiden who
bids adieu to love and its follies; but who,
though conscious of her wisdom, feels rather
mournful to be so very wise. These little
fanciful ways and conceits, which tempered her
good sense, and made it endurable—for mere
good sense is apt to be dreadfully oppressive
—were Jane's real fascination, in my opinion. I
could understand that a man should be allured
by them; but they were never displayed unless
in intimacy, and Mr. Forbes could know nothing
about them. Still he must be smitten, as Jane
said; for why else should he wish to marry her?

If hurry be a proof of love, Mr. Forbes
was very much in love. He wanted to marry
Jane offhand; and when my aunt Mary, who
kept house for us, remonstrated a little
indignantly, Mr. Forbes showed some temper. He
submitted, however, and the courtship went on.
I could not help seeing a good deal of it, and I
did not like what I saw. Jane, silly child,
seemed quite happy with such attentions as Mr.
Forbes paid to her; but if she was satisfied, I
was not. Mr. Forbes went through love-making
most conscientiously; but I remembered my
flirtation with Grace Anley seven years before, and
I thought it was something very different from
this. I never caught Mr. Forbes giving Jane
any of those looks which had made me so dreadfully
ridiculous in those days; I never saw him
raised to bliss or sunk to despair by anything
my little cousin said or did; and what was very
significant, I never once saw him try to be alone
with her. I drew the pitiless conclusion that
Mr. Forbes, though one of the cleverest men I
knew, had nothing to say to Jane.

I was alone with her on the evening before
the wedding-day. We sat in the parlour, by
one of the open windows, and we looked out
at the garden. I could not help thinking that
this garden would seem very dull and lonely
when my little cousin Jenny was gone. No
more should I hear her gaily carolling in the
morning, as she ran down the alleys, light and
blithe as a bird on the wing. No more would I
see her reading in one of the arbours as intent
as a young Muse. No more would the waving
of her muslin dress or the pattering of her little
feet on the gravel give me pleasant thoughts of
youth and girlhood. She was going off to Paris
with that cold Mr. Forbes, and after their
honeymoon trip he would take her to his house
and keep her there for ever. These were dismal
thoughts; so, with a groan, I said:

"You are going away to-morrow, Jane?"

"Yes," she answered, in a low voice. " Do
you know, I can scarcely believe it, cousin
William."

"Nonsense," I said, a little crossly. " You
like it. I have no doubt you are desperately in
love with Mr. Forbes by this time."

"No, I am not," she replied, with one of her
little solemn ways; " it is very odd, but I am
not in love with Mr. Forbes, in spite of all his
devotion to me."

Mr. Forbes's settlements had been very
liberal indeed, but other devotion I had not seen.

"It is very wrong," continued poor Jenny, in
a tone of keen remorse; " but it is no fault of
mine, you know. Nevertheless, I spoke to Mr.
Forbes about it the other day."

"Did you, though?" I exclaimed, rather startled
at this unnecessary piece of candour.

"Yes; and he said it did not matter, that we
should be very happy together, and that I would
be, he knew, a good mother to his little boy."

Jane's simplicity and Mr. Forbes's coolness
both confounded me. It was plain he was no
more in love with Jane than Jane was with him.
Only, why on earth did he want to marry
her? How did he know that she would make a
good mother to his little boy? Jane had no sort
of experience concerning children, and was not
even very fond of them. She liked them, to be
sure; but I had never seen her go baby mad,
like Grace Anley. Mischievous little flirt, she
knew it became her, I suppose. Well, well! I
have had my revenge. I saw Grace the other
day—she is now Mrs. Grant—and Grace, my
nymph, my sylph, has grown stout.

I don't exactly know what reply I gave little
Jane; I dare say some truism about the
non-necessity of ardent love on her part, for she said,
in her serious way:

"So I think, cousin William; besides, you
know, feeling that deficiency, I must, of course,
make it up by being ever so much better than I