d the possibility of his caring for her, not because she
underestimated herself, but because she overestimated him. Now, she
knew he cared, he cared, and he wanted to marry her, to make her his
wife. After she had reached home, when they were seated at the tea
table, she did not think of telling anybody. She ate and felt as if
she were in a blissful crystal sphere of isolation. It did not occur
to her to reveal her secret until she went into her grandmother's
room rather late to bid her good night. Annie had been sitting by
herself on the front piazza and allowing herself a perfect feast in
future air-castles. She could see from where she sat, the lights from
the windows of the Edes' house, and she heard Wilbur's voice, and now
and then his laugh. Margaret's voice, she never heard at all. Annie
went into the chamber, the best in the house, and there lay her
grandmother, old Ann Maria Eustace, propped up in bed, reading a
novel which was not allowed in the Fairbridge library. She had bidden
Annie buy it for her, when she last went to New York.

"I wouldn't ask a girl to buy such a book," the old lady had said,
"but nobody will know you and I have read so many notices about its
wickedness, I want to see it for myself."

Now she looked up when Annie entered. "It is not wicked at all," she
said in rather a disappointed tone. "It is much too dull. In order to
make a book wicked, it must be, at least, somewhat entertaining. The
writer speaks of wicked things, but in such a very moral fashion that
it is all like a sermon. I don't like the book at all. At the same
time a girl like you had better not read it and you had better see
that Harriet and Susan don't get a glimpse of it. They would be set
into fits. It is a strange thing that both my daughters should be
such old maids to the bone and marrow. You can read it though if you
wish, Annie. I doubt if you understand the wickedness anyway, and I
don't want you to grow up straight-laced like Harriet and Susan. It
is really a misfortune. They lose a lot."

Then Annie spoke. "I shall not be an old maid, I think," said she. "I
am going to be married."

"Married! Who is going to marry you? I haven't seen a man in this
house except the doctor and the minister for the last twenty years."

"I am going to marry the minister, Mr. von Rosen."

"Lord," said Annie's grandmother, and stared at her. She was a queer
looking old lady propped up on a flat pillow with her wicked book.
She