she waited quietly through the long, dim, misty day--which seemed the
strangest day she had ever known; until, in the evening, her lover's
knock came to the door.

She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly
from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the
last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from
his manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that
morning between herself and Mr. Harper.

It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding,
Nathanael, there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile
and bow.

But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper
kindly to Agatha; "My brother made me come--I shall do admirably to talk
nonsense to the Iansons."

And so he did, carrying off the restraint of the evening so ingeniously
that no one would have suspected any deeper elements of joy or pain
beneath the smooth surface of their cheerful group.

Nathanael sat almost as silent as ever; but even his very silence was
a beautiful, joyful repose. In his aspect a new soul seemed to have
dawned--the new soul, noble and strong, which comes into a man when he
feels that his life has another life added to it, to guard, cherish, and
keep as his own until death. And though Mr. Harper gave little outward
sign of what was in him, it was touching to see how his eyes followed
his betrothed everywhere, whether she were moving about the room, or
working, or trying to sing. Continually Agatha felt the shining of
these quiet, tender eyes, and she began to experience the
consciousness--perhaps the sweetest in the world--of being able to make
another human being entirely happy.

Only sometimes, when she looked at her future husband--hardly able
to believe he was really such--and thought how strangely things had
happened; how here she was, no longer a girl, but a woman engaged to
be married, sitting calmly by her lover's side, without any of the
tremblingly delicious emotions which she had once believed would
constitute the great mystery, Love--a strange pensiveness overtook her.
She felt all the solemnity of her position, and, as yet, little of its
sweetness. Perhaps that would come in time. She resolved to do her
duty towards him whom she so tenderly honoured, and who so deeply loved
herself; and all the evening the entire gentleness of her behaviour
was enough to charm the very soul of any o