in a melancholy voice. Has there been any quarrel
between you two?"

She was accustomed to our small quarrels, and to setting them right
again; for we were prone to quarrel in a cousinly fashion, without much
real bitterness on either side, but with such an intimate and irritating
knowledge of each other's weak points, that we needed a peace-maker at
hand.

"Mother, I am not going to marry my cousin Julia," I said.

"So I have heard before," she answered, with a faint smile. "Come, come,
Martin! it is too late to talk boyish nonsense like this."

"But I love somebody else," I said, warmly, for my heart throbbed at the
thought of Olivia; "and I told Julia so this afternoon. It is broken off
for good now, mother."

She gave me no answer, and I looked up into her dear face in alarm. It
had grown rigid, and a peculiar blue tinge of pallor was spreading over
it. Her head had fallen back against the chair. I had never seen her
look so death-like in any of her illnesses, and I sprang to my feet in
terror. She stopped me by a slight convulsive pressure of her hand, as I
was about to unfasten her brooch and open her dress to give her air.

"No, Martin," she whispered, "I shall be better in a moment."

But it was several minutes before she breathed freely and naturally, or
could lift up her head. Then she did not look at me, but lifted up her
eyes to the pale evening sky, and her lips quivered with agitation.

"Martin, it will be the death of me," she said; and a few tears stole
down her cheeks, which I wiped away.

"It shall not be the death of you," I exclaimed. "If Julia is willing to
marry me, knowing the whole truth, I am ready to marry her for your
sake, mother. I would do any thing for your sake. But Johanna said she
ought to be told, and I think it was right myself."

"Who is it, who can it be that you love?" she asked.

"Mother," I said, "I wish I had told you before, but I did not know that
I loved the girl as I do, till I saw her yesterday in Sark, and Captain
Carey charged me with it."

"That girl!" she cried. "One of the Olliviers! O Martin, you must marry
in your own class."

"That was a mistake," I answered. "Her Christian name is Olivia; I do
not know what her surname is."

"Not know even her name!" she exclaimed.

"Listen, mother," I said; and then I told her all I knew about Olivia,
and drew such a picture of her as I had seen her, as made my mother
smile and sigh deeply in turns.

"But she m