ve thought of it more. Everybody will say I am in
the right."

"Yes, there are reasons enough for it, but there is a better reason
against it. If you love me you must help me do what is best," said
Nan. "I shall miss you and think of you more than you know when I am
away. I never shall forget all these pleasant days we have been
together. Oh George!" she cried, in a tone that thrilled him through
and through, "I hope you will be friends with me again by and by. You
will know then I have done right because it is right and will prove
itself. If it is wrong for me I couldn't really make you happy; and
over all this and beyond it something promises me and calls me for a
life that my marrying you would hinder and not help. It isn't that I
shouldn't be so happy that it is not easy to turn away even from the
thought of it; but I know that the days would come when I should see,
in a way that would make me long to die, that I had lost the true
direction of my life and had misled others beside myself. You don't
believe me, but I cannot break faith with my duty. There are many
reasons that have forbidden me to marry, and I have a certainty as
sure as the stars that the only right condition of life for me is to
follow the way that everything until now has pointed out. The great
gain and purpose of my being alive is there; and I must not mind the
blessings that I shall have to do without."

He made a gesture of impatience and tried to interrupt her, but she
said quickly, as if to prevent his speaking: "Listen to me. I can't
help speaking plainly. I would not have come with you this afternoon,
only I wished to make you understand me entirely. I have never since I
can remember thought of myself and my life in any way but
unmarried,--going on alone to the work I am fit to do. I do care for
you. I have been greatly surprised and shaken because I found how
strongly something in me has taken your part, and shown me the
possibility of happiness in a quiet life that should centre itself in
one man's love, and within the walls of his home. But something tells
me all the time that I could not marry the whole of myself as most
women can; there is a great share of my life which could not have its
way, and could only hide itself and be sorry. I know better and better
that most women are made for another sort of existence, but by and by
I must do my part in my own way to make many homes happy instead of
one; to free them from pain, and teach gr