on't always think! If there's anything I do detest, it's a
coquette!" The last sentence I unconsciously uttered aloud.

"Don't call her that, Auntie! I really think she didn't know. I wasn't
just to her. I was too angry. When I spoke to her she looked really
distressed and astonished. I am sure that I ought----"

"Nonsense, Robert! she must have seen your feelings. And haven't you
been sending her flowers and books and pictures, and reading to her, and
talking to her the whole time, this three months! Where were her eyes? I
have no patience with her, I say!"

The boy had recovered his sense of justice so much sooner than I! He
smiled sadly, and took both my little old hands in his. "Best of
aunties! what a good hater you are! Now, if you love me, you will be
kind to her, and try to love and comfort her. Somehow she looks very
unhappy."

I could not answer.

"She looked--O so sorry! Auntie, when I spoke, and as if she was too
much astonished to answer me. I do think it was the very last thing in
the world she expected. And after she told me, which she did at once,
that I was mistaken, and she was mistaken, and that we never could be
any more than friends to each other, and I had got up to go away,--for I
was very angry as well as agitated,--she stood looking so pale and so
earnestly at me, as if she must make me believe her. Then she held out
her hands to me, and I thought she was going to speak; but she shook her
head, and seemed so thoroughly distressed, that I tried to smile, and
shake hands cordially, though, I confess, I didn't feel much like it.
But I do now, Auntie,--and you must forgive her for not thinking quite
so much of your Rob as you do."

He took a photograph from his breast-pocket, and kissed it.

"She gave me this; and she wrote on the back the date of to-day, April
16th, 1861. She said she did not want me to remember her as she is now,
but as she was in her happy days. And that they could never come again."

It was a very lovely vignette, taken when she was joyous and
round-faced, and with the curls falling about her cheeks and neck,
instead of the prim little widow's cap she wore now. And instead of the
still, self-contained, suffering look, there was great sweetness and
serenity.

"I don't see why she gave it to you, Rob," said I peevishly; "the best
thing you can do is to forget her, and the kindest thing she could do to
you would be to cut off all hope."

"She did that," he replied; "but