d. She looked observantly at the restless
movements of the girl, and the changing color in her cheeks. "You have
not eaten anything, and you do nothing but shiver and sigh."

Mrs. Hartley was quite convinced in her own mind that Lettice had
received an offer of marriage from her cousin Brooke Dalton. Possibly
she had already accepted it. She should hear all about it that morning.
The symptoms overnight had not been too favorable but she put down the
disturbance which Lettice had shown to an excess of nervous excitement.
Women do not all receive a sentence of happiness for life in precisely
the same manner, she reflected: some cry and some laugh, some dance and
sing, others collapse and are miserable. Lettice was one of the latter
kind, and it was for Mrs. Hartley to give her a mother's sympathy and
comfort. So she awaited the word which should enable her to cut the
dykes of her affection.

Lettice turned white and cold, and her grey eyes were fixed with a stony
look on the basket of flowers which decorated the breakfast table.

"I am not well," she said, "but it is worse with the mind than the body.
I have done a wicked thing, and to atone for it I am going to do a cruel
thing; so how could you expect me to have an appetite?"

"My dear pet!" said Mrs. Hartley, putting out her hand to touch the
fingers of her friend, which she found as cold as ice, "you need not
tell me that you have done anything wicked, for I don't believe it. And
I am sure you would not do anything cruel, knowing beforehand that it
was cruel."

"Is it not wicked to tell a lie?--for I have done that."

"No, no!"

"And will it not be cruel to you and to Edith that I should cause pain
to your cousin, and make him think me insincere and mercenary?"

"He could not possibly think so," said Mrs. Hartley with decision.

"He must."

"What are you going to do, Lettice?"

"I am going to tell him that I was not honest when I allowed him to say
that he would come for my answer in a month, and to think it possible
that the answer might be favorable--when God knows that it cannot."

"Brooke has asked you to be his wife?"

"Yes."

"And you told him to come for his answer in a month?"

"I agreed to it."

"Well, darling, I think that was very natural--if you could not say
'yes' at once to my cousin."

There was a touch of resentment in the words "my cousin," which Lettice
felt. Mrs. Hartley could not understand that Brooke Dalton should have
to of