that she was nowhere near the mark.)

"Marriage is a negative relation," continued Miss Field, with an air of
knowledge. "People undertake it from an unpardonable individual
curiosity. They see it all around them, and yet they rush in, blindly
trusting that their own venture will turn out differently from every
other. Someone once said that it was like a crowded church--those
outside were endeavouring to get in, and those inside were making
violent efforts to get out. Personally, I have had the better part of
it. I have my home, my independence, and I have brought up a child.
Moreover, I have not been annoyed with a husband."

"Suppose one falls in love," said Margaret, timidly.

"Love!" exclaimed Aunt Peace. "Stuff and nonsense!" She rose
majestically, and went out with her head high and the step of a
grenadier.

Left to herself, Margaret mentally reviewed their conversation, passing
resolutely over the hurt that Aunt Peace had unconsciously made in her
heart. Never before had it occurred to her that Lynn might marry. "He
can't," she whispered; "why, he's nothing but a child."

She turned her thoughts to Iris and Aunt Peace. The homeless little
savage had grown into a charming woman, under the patient care of the
only mother she had ever known. If Aunt Peace should die--and if Lynn
should marry,--she did not phrase the thought, but she was very
conscious of its existence,--she and Iris might make a little home for
themselves in the old house. Two men, even the best of friends, can
never make a home, but two women, on speaking terms, may do so.

"If Lynn should marry!" Insistently, the torment of it returned. If he
should fall in love, who was she to put a barrier in his path? His
mother, whose heart had been hungry all these years, should she keep him
back by so much as a word? Then, all at once, she knew that it was her
own warped life which demanded it by way of compensation.

"No," she breathed, with her lips white, "I will never stand in his way.
Because I have suffered, he shall not." Then she laughed hysterically.
"How ridiculous I am!" she said to herself. "Why, he is nothing but a
child!"

The mood passed, and the woman's soul began to dwell upon its precious
memories. Mnemosyne, that guardian angel, forever separates the wheat
from the chaff, the joy from the pain. At the touch of her hallowed
fingers, the heartache takes on a certain calmness, which is none the
less beautiful because it is wholly mad