my pockets. I wonder how long
that time really was? It seemed to me interminable--unbearable. At
length I looked round at her. She must have felt my look, for she
changed her attitude with a quick sharp movement, and caught my eyes.

'Don't look so sorry, Paul,' she said. 'Don't, please. I can't bear it.
There is nothing to be sorry for. I think not, at least. You have not
done wrong, at any rate.' I felt that I groaned, but I don't think she
heard me. 'And he,--there's no wrong in his marrying, is there? I'm
sure I hope he'll be happy. Oh! how I hope it!' These last words were
like a wail; but I believe she was afraid of breaking down, for she
changed the key in which she spoke, and hurried on.

'Lucille--that's our English Lucy, I suppose? Lucille Holdsworth! It's
a pretty name; and I hope--I forget what I was going to say. Oh! it was
this. Paul, I think we need never speak about this again; only remember
you are not to be sorry. You have not done wrong; you have been very,
very kind; and if I see you looking grieved I don't know what I might
do;--I might breakdown, you know.' I think she was on the point of
doing so then, but the dark storm came dashing down, and the
thunder-cloud broke right above the house, as it seemed. Her mother,
roused from sleep, called out for Phillis; the men and women from the
hay-field came running into shelter, drenched through. The minister
followed, smiling, and not unpleasantly excited by the war of elements;
for, by dint of hard work through the long summer's day, the greater
part of the hay was safely housed in the barn in the field. Once or
twice in the succeeding bustle I came across Phillis, always busy, and,
as it seemed to me, always doing the right thing. When I was alone in
my own room at night I allowed myself to feel relieved; and to believe
that the worst was over, and was not so very bad after all. But the
succeeding days were very miserable. Sometimes I thought it must be my
fancy that falsely represented Phillis to me as strangely changed, for
surely, if this idea of mine was well-founded, her parents--her father
and mother--her own flesh and blood--would have been the first to
perceive it. Yet they went on in their household peace and content; if
anything, a little more cheerfully than usual, for the 'harvest of the
first-fruits', as the minister called it, had been more bounteous than
usual, and there was plenty all around in which the humblest labourer
was made to sh