swiftly as it comes.

"She is consenting," my father assumed.

"If you are satisfied with the present arrangement, I do not need to say
anything. I do not want to, anyhow. I only do it for the sake of your
mother, for the sake of the wife of my best friend. For his sake too,
God bless his memory!"

Marjie's confusion deepened. The words of my letter telling of her
father's wishes were burning in her brain. With the thought of them,
this hesitancy on the part of Judge Baronet brought a chill that made
her shiver. Could it be that her mother was trying to influence my
father in her favor? Her good judgment and the knowledge of her mother's
sense of propriety forbade that. So she only murmured,

"I don't understand. I have no plans. I would do anything for my father,
I don't know why I should be called to say anything," and then she broke
down entirely and sat white and still with downcast eyes, her two
shapely little hands clenched together.

"Marjie, this is very embarrassing for me," my father said kindly, "and
as I say, it is only for Irving's sake I speak at all. If you feel you
can manage your own affairs, it is not right for anybody to interfere,"
how tender his tones were, "but, my dear girl, maybe years and
experience can give me the right to say a word or two for the sake of
the friendship that has always been between us, a friendship future
relations will of necessity limit to a degree. But if you have your
plans all settled, I wish to know it. It will change the whole course of
some proceedings I have been preparing ever since the war; and I want to
know, too, this much for the sake of the man who died in my arms. I want
to know if you are perfectly satisfied to accept the life now opening to
you."

Marjie had seen my father every day since I left home. Every day he had
spoken to her, and a silent sort of parental and filial love had grown
up between the two. The sudden break in it had come to both now.

Women also may abound in wisdom but the wisest of them may not always
interpret correctly.

"He had planned for Phil to marry Rachel, had sent him East on purpose.
He was so polite to her when she was here. I have broken up his plans
and his friendship is to be limited." So ran the girl's thoughts. "But I
have no plans. I don't know what he means. Nothing new is opening to
me."

A new phase of womanhood began suddenly for her, a call for
self-dependence, for a judgment of her own, not the acceptance