act answer.

But Mattie shook her head at this with a faint smile:

"Grace will never marry. She would not leave Archie."

"Oh, but that is nonsense, do you know?--sheer nonsense! Many girls
talk like that, but they change their mind in the end. Why, the parson
may marry himself. You don't suppose a good looking fellow like that
intends to be an old bachelor? And then what will Miss Grace do?"

"I don't know. I am afraid she will miss him dreadfully."

"Oh, but she will get over it all right. It does not do to make a fuss
over that sort of thing. Sentimentality between brothers and sisters
is all very well in its way, but it won't hold against a wife's or
husband's claims. I never had any myself, so I don't know; but I find
it precious lonely without them. That is why I have adopted my
cousins. A man must care for some one."

"Yes, indeed," echoed Mattie, with a sigh.

"I am afraid your people do not use you very well, Miss Mattie," he
went on, with cheerful sympathy that was quite a cordial in its way.
"You look a bit down this afternoon; a fellow would call it in the
blues, and he would be thinking of a cigar and brandy-and-soda. What a
pity women don't smoke! it is no end soothing to the spirits!"

"We have got afternoon tea," returned Mattie, beginning to smile at
this.

"Well, why don't you ring and order some?" he replied, quite
seriously. "Do, please, Miss Mattie, if it will put a little heart
into you. Why, I should like a cup myself uncommonly. There never was
such a fellow for afternoon tea." And then Mattie did ring the bell,
and, Sir Harry having stirred the fire into a cheerful blaze, and the
little brass kettle beginning to sing cheerily on its trivet, things
soon looked more comfortable.

"Now you are all right," he remarked, presently. "You look quite a
different sort of body now. When I first came in you reminded me of
Cinderella in a brown dress, sitting all alone, by a very black fire.
I do believe you were on the verge of crying. Now, weren't you, Miss
Mattie?" And Mattie, with much shame, owned to the impeachment.

"And what was it all about, eh?" he asked, with such a coaxing
peremptoriness that Mattie confessed that she was rather dull at the
thought that nobody wanted her, and that she must go home; and, on
being further pressed and questioned, out it all came,--Mattie's
shortcomings, her stupid ways, and the provocation she offered to home
criticism. Sir Harry listened and laughed,