"Not going to marry him!" echoed Miss
Pollard, and now at last her meek eyes began to
kindle fire. "Dr. Strong is not a person to
be played with and thrown aside."

"Perhaps not," said Sylvia, carelessly. She
was tired of the conversation, and was not
to submit to he lectured. But Miss
Pollard would not overlook the doctor's wrongs
so easily as she had done her own.

"Miss Ashenhurst," she said, her whole little
person quivering with indignation, " you have
done wrong, you have done very wrong.
Doubtless you have been at a loss for
amusement, but the sad humbling of one foolish
woman might have been enough, without the
grieving ot a worthy heart like that which has
Been offered to you, and which you so carelessly
fling away. I am speaking to you freely,
Ashenhurst, because I am angry. Your
conduct since you came here has been most
unworthy; your behaviour with Mr. Elphinstone,
in spite of his engagement to Mattie, is talked
of in the village. Such ways may do for
London, but they are not admired in simple places
like Streamstown. I shall bid you good night,
Miss Ashenhurst. I have not been so angry for
many years. I am sorry I have had to speak to
you so plainly. Good night, Mattie, my dear,
and I wish you could contrive to infuse a little
of your honesty into your friend."

And with this the little lady bounced out of
the room, and out of the house.

It seemed a long time after she had gone
before Sylvia spoke to me. While Miss Pollard
had talked of herself and the doctor, Sylvia had
sat studying the carpet and tapping her foot.
When Miss Pollard said, " Your behaviour with
Mr. Elphinstone," Sylvia's face had flushed
crimson, and she had lifted her head to speak
angrily. When Miss Pollard said, " in spite of
his engagement to Mattie," Sylvia's dilated eyes
had fixed themselves with an absent look of
perplexity on the opposite wall, while gradually the
indignant glow faded from her forehead, her
cheeks, and her lips, and she sat paler than I had
ever seen her, studying the carpet as before.

It seemed five minutes before she spoke. I
dare say it was not so long.

"Mattie," said she at last, "what was it that
fiery little woman said about Luke?"

I had never felt such a coward in my life
before. I had never been so utterly at a loss to
know what to say.

"Did you not hear what she said, Sylvia?"
I stammered.

"Had I been sure I heard rightly, I should
not trouble myself and you with the question,"
returned she, so sharply, it hardly seemed
possible it could be Sylvia who was speaking.
"You do not seem to wish to repeat what she
said. I thought she spoke of an engagement
between you and Luke. She, or I must have
been wrong. It is not possible that such an
engagement could exist."

"It is quite true. Such an engagement has
existed for the past six months. I ought to
have told you about it," said I, stabbing her
involuntarily in my trepidation.

"You ought to have told me about it," she
echoed, laughing, with a spasm of pain upon
her-face. " Hear her! how coolly she says it.
She ought to have told me about it!" repeated
Sylvia, leaving her seat with a passionate spring,
and standing at the window, her back to me.

"Sylvia," began I, pleadingly, " how could
I know that it was anything to you?"

She made a little frantic gesture of impatience.

"Mattie!" she cried, "you have got me on
the rack, but why need you torture me more
than is necessary? Stay, though!" she added.
"We may as well speak out, having said so
much already. You think that during your
illness I have employed myself by 'setting my
cap,' as they say, at Mr. Luke Elphinstone, and
that I am now disappointed. Is not that what
you believe?"

"I will not say anything, Sylvia," I said.
"You have no right to oblige me to accuse you
against my will."

"I thank you for your generosity," she said,
bitterly; " but I will have the truth. What have
you thought? What have you believed? Miss
Pollard spoke of talk in the village. What have they
dared to say? What have you heard? I will hear
it from some one, so you may as well tell me."

"I heard some remarks from the servants,"
said I, " which I treated as idle nonsense, and
silenced at once. I saw you and Luke sitting
by the burn together this afternoon, and I spoke
to Luke about it."

"You spoke to Luke about it," she echoed,
in a choking voice. It seemed as if she could
not clearly realise the meaning of what I said,
unless she repeated my words. "You spoke
to Luke about it. And what did he say?"

"He acknowledged that he had flirted a little,"
I said, " and treated the matter as a jest." Then
there followed a long silence, while Sylvia stood
in the window with her back to me, and the
twilight gathered about her light figure.

At last she turned to me again. She was
strangely flushed, and there were traces of
suffering on her face. One could scarcely have
recognised the gay pretty Sylvia.

"Why did you keep your engagement a secret
, Mattie?" she said.

"It was Luke's desire," I said. " I promised
him not to tell you of it till he gave me leave."

"I see; and then he behaves as he has done,
and then he tells you that I have joined with
him in a vulgar flirtation. He trusts to a
woman's pride for silence between you and me,
and he is right enough there. But I will tell
you this mach, Mattie, Luke asked me to be
his wife before ever he could have been a lover
of yours. Did I not tell you one day that at the
time I promised to marry poor Dick, I liked
another better than your brother? That other
was Luke, and he knew it."

I was not surprised to hear this. I had
guessed something of it before.

"He left me in great grief and anger," Sylvia
went on, " but he came to me again one day last
spring. He told me then that he had become a
wealthy man, and he urged me to pay a visit to
the Mill-house. I think I told you before how