they
take a house, or even when they make a will."

"Oh, Edgar--I don't like to hear you speak like that."

"Well, well--I didn't mean to. But I have mentioned as much to your
father, who has made no objection; and why should you?"

She gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow
sentiment to give way to policy--if there were indeed policy in his
plan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward.

CHAPTER XXIV.

He left her at the door of her father's house. As he receded, and was
clasped out of sight by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as a man
who hardly appertained to her existence at all. Cleverer, greater than
herself, one outside her mental orbit, as she considered him, he seemed
to be her ruler rather than her equal, protector, and dear familiar
friend.

The disappointment she had experienced at his wish, the shock given to
her girlish sensibilities by his irreverent views of marriage, together
with the sure and near approach of the day fixed for committing her
future to his keeping, made her so restless that she could scarcely
sleep at all that night. She rose when the sparrows began to walk out
of the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and
by-and-by peeped out behind the window-curtains. It was even now day
out-of-doors, though the tones of morning were feeble and wan, and it
was long before the sun would be perceptible in this overshadowed vale.
Not a sound came from any of the out-houses as yet. The tree-trunks,
the road, the out-buildings, the garden, every object wore that aspect
of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to
such scenes. Outside her window helpless immobility seemed to be
combined with intense consciousness; a meditative inertness possessed
all things, oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions.
Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and orchards; over these roofs
and over the apple-trees behind, high up the slope, and backed by the
plantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future
husband, the rough-cast front showing whitely through its creepers.
The window-shutters were closed, the bedroom curtains closely drawn,
and not the thinnest coil of smoke rose from the rugged chimneys.

Something broke the stillness. The front door of the house she was
gazing at opened softly, and there came out into the porch a female
figure, wrapped in a large shawl, beneath which w