ke this for? All in this house are on me.
Is it wonderful that I should have my share in the interest the whole of
the rest of the parish has in this young lady lost?"

He rose to leave the room. Miss Mary stopped him with the least touch
upon the arm, a lingering, gentle touch of the finger-tips, and yet
caressing.

"Gilian," she said softly, "do you think you can be deceiving me?
_M'eudail, m'ieudail!_ I know there is a great trouble in your mind, and
is it not for me to share?"

"There is something, but I cannot tell you now what it is, though I came
here to tell you," he answered, making no step to go.

"Gilian," said she, standing before him, and the light from the window
touching her ear so that, beside the darkness of her hair (for she had
off her cap), it looked like a pink flower, "Gilian, can you not
be telling me? Do you think I cannot guess what ails you, nor fancy
something for its cure?"

He saw from the shyness of her face that she had an inkling of at least
the object of his interest.

"But I cannot be mentioning it here," he said, feebly enough. "It's a
matter a man must cherish to himself alone, and not be airing before
others. I felt, in there, to have it in my mind before two men who had
worked and fought and adventured all their lives, and come to this at
last, was a childish weakness."

She caught hold of his coat lapel, and fingered it, and looked as she
spoke, not at the face above her, but at some vision over his shoulder.
"Before them, my dear," she said. "That well might be, though even they
have not always been the hard and selfish veterans. What about me, my
dear? Can I not be understanding, think you, Gilian?"

"It is such a foolish thing," said he weakly, "a thing of interest only
to the very young."

"And am I so old, my dear," she said, "not to have been young once? Do
you think this little wee wife with her hair getting grey--not so grey
either, though--was always in old maid dolours in her garret thinking of
hoasts and headaches and cures for them, and her brothers' slippers
and her own rheumatics on rainy days? Oh, my dear, my dear! you used to
understand me as if it had been through glass--ay, from the first day
you saw me, and my brother's sword must be sending me to my weeping; can
you not understand me now? I am old, and the lowe of youth is down in
its ember, but once I was as young--as young--as--as--as the girl you
are thinking of."

He drew back, overwhelmed with