feel perfectly assured that he loved thee with all his
heart, and none but thee: and ere the sun had set, he should have given
the very same certainty to _Nan_ at the farm, and to _Mall_ down in the
glen. I believe he did rarely make love to so little as one woman at
once. He liked--he once told your father so much--a choice of strings
for his bow. But of all this, at first, lost in my happy love, I knew
nothing. My love to him was so true and perfect, that the very notion
that his could be lesser than so never entered mine head. It was
_Anstace_ who saw the clouds gathering before any other--_Anstace_, to
whom, in her helpless suffering, God gave a strange power of reading
hearts. There came a strange maiden on the scene--a beautiful maiden,
with fair eyes and gleaming hair--and _Leonard's_ heart was gone from me
for ever. Gone!--had it ever come? I cannot tell. May-be some little
corner of his heart was mine, once on a time--I doubt if I had more. He
had every corner and every throb of mine. Howbeit, when this maid--"

"How was she called, Aunt _Joyce_?" saith _Milly_, in rather an hard
voice.

Aunt _Joyce_ did not make answer for a moment: and, looking up on her, I
saw drawn brows and flushed cheeks.

"Never mind that, _Milly_. I shall call her _Mary_. It was not her
name. Well, when this maid first came to visit us, and I brought her
above to my sister, that as ye know might never arise from the couch
whereon she lay--I something marvelled to see how quick from her face to
mine went _Anstace'_ eyes, and back again to her. I knew, long after,
what had been her thought. She had no faith in _Leonard_, and she
guessed quick enough that this face should draw him away from me. She
tried to prepare me as she saw it coming. But I was blind and deaf. I
shut mine eyes tight, and put my fingers in mine ears. I would not face
the cruel truth. For _Mary_ herself, I am well assured she meant me no
ill, nor did she see that any ill was wrought till all were o'er. She
did but divert her with _Leonard's_ words, caring less for him than for
them. She was vain, and loved flatteries, and he saw it, and gave her
them by the bushel. She was a child laking with a firebrand, and never
knew what it were until she burnt her fingers. And at last, maids, mine
eyes were forced open. _Leonard_ himself told me, and in so many words,
what I had refused to hear from others,--that he loved well enough the
gold that was l