it all in a rush, but the words
would not come.

"I am beginning to be a little deaf," she went on. "To deceive you about
that, I have sometimes answered you without really knowing what you
said."

"Anything more, Ailie?"

"My accomplishments--they were never great, but Kitty and I thought my
playing of classical pieces--my fingers are not sufficiently pliable
now. And I--I forget so many things."

"But, Ailie--"

"Please let me tell you. I was reading a book, a story, last winter, and
one of the characters, an old maid, was held up to ridicule in it for
many little peculiarities that--that I recognized as my own. They had
grown upon me without my knowing that they made me ridiculous, and now
I--I have tried, but I cannot alter them."

"Is that all, Ailie?"

"No."

The last seemed to be the hardest to say. Dusk had come on, and they
could not see each other well. She asked him to light the lamp, and his
back was toward her while he did it, wondering a little at her request.
When he turned, her hands rose like cowards to hide her head, but she
pulled them down. "Do you not see?" she said.

"I see that you have done something to your hair," he answered, "I liked
it best the other way."

Most people would have liked it best the other way. There was still a
good deal of it, but the "bun" in which it ended had gone strangely
small. "The rest was false," said Miss Ailie, with a painful effort; "at
least, it is my own, but it came out when--when Kitty died."

She stopped, but he was silent. "That is all now," she said, softly; and
she waited for him to speak if he chose. He turned his head away
sharply, and Miss Ailie mistook his meaning. If she gave one little
sob--Well, it was but one, and then all the glory of womanhood came
rushing to her aid, and it unfurled its flag over her, whispering, "Now,
sweet daughter, now, strike for me," and she raised her head gallantly,
and for a moment in her life the old school-mistress was a queen. "I
shall ring for tea," she said, quietly and without a tremor; "do you
think there is anything so refreshing after a walk as a dish of tea?"

She rang the bell, but its tinkle only made Gavinia secede farther into
the cellar, and that summons has not been answered to this day, and no
one seems to care, for while the wires were still vibrating Mr. McLean
had asked Miss Ailie to forgive him and marry him.

Miss Ailie said she would, but, "Oh," she cried, "ten years ago it might
h