r. Hastings said, and then he asked
again that she should reconsider her decision. He could not take it as
her final one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of
making her his own to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many
reasons why she should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:

"If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month, but you must
not hope that my answer will be different from what it is to-night. I
want your friendship, though, the same as if this had never happened.
I like you, Mr. Hastings, because you have been kind to me, and made
my stay in Newport so much pleasanter than I thought it could be. You
have not talked to me like other men. You have treated me as if I, at
least, had common sense. I thank you for that; and I like you
because----"

She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say "because you
are Arthur's friend." That would have betrayed the miserable secret
tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings,
who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus
that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love
standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would
almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not a
little piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it,
accustomed, as he was, to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling
down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as
he walked slowly back to the hotel, where Mrs. Meredith was waiting
for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was
amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing
to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts
himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl who, bidding
him good night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and
he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:

"I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She
wishes for a month's probation, which I have granted, and I ask that
she shall not be persecuted about the matter. I wish for an unbiassed
answer."

He bowed politely, and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on
air as she climbed the three flights of stairs and sought her niece's
chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently,
and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the
rear o