a little sorry--at first, because I knew how much
it had cost you; but this evening I could have found it in my heart to
be angry with you,--yes, even with you. 'Oh, the blindness of these
men!' I thought: 'why will they trample on their own happiness?'"

"Are you speaking of me?" he asked, in a bewildered tone.

"Of whom should I be speaking?" she answered; and her voice had a
peculiar meaning in it. "You are my dear brother,--my dearest brother;
but you are no more sensible than other men."

"I suppose not," he returned, staring at her; "I suppose not."

"Many men have done what you are doing," she went on, quietly. "Many
have wanted what belonged to another, and have turned their backs upon
the blessing that might have been theirs. It is the game of
cross-purposes. Do you remember that picture, Archie,--the lovely
print you longed to buy--the two girls and the two men? There was the
pretty demure maiden in front, and at the back a girl with a far
sweeter face to my mind, watching the gloomy-looking fellow who is
regarding his divinity from afar. There was a face here to-night that
brought that second girl strongly to my mind; and I caught an
expression on it once----" Here Archie violently started.

"Hush! hush! what are you implying? Grace, you are romancing; you do
not mean this?"

"As there is a heaven above us, I do mean it, Archie."

"Then, for God's sake, not another word!" And then he rose from his
seat, and stood on the rug.

"You are not really angry with me?" she urged, frightened at his
vehemence.

"No; I am not angry. I never am angry with you, Grace, as you know;
but all the same there are some things that never should be said."
And, when he had thus gravely rebuked her speech, he kissed her
forehead, and muttering some excuse about the lateness of the hour,
left the room.

Grace crept away to her chamber a little discomfited by this rebuff,
gently as it had been given; but if she had only guessed the commotion
those few hinted words had raised in her brother's mind!

He had understood her; in one moment he had understood her. As though
by a lightning-flash of intelligence, the truth had dawned upon him;
and if an electric shock had passed through his frame and set all his
nerves tingling he could not have been more deeply shaken.

Was that what she thought, too, when she had turned away from him with
that quiet look of scorn on her face! Did she know of any possible
blessing that might h