purpose was to make me thoroughly understand that I was
not in this matter at all. She did not say anything of the kind,
but I think she thought it would be a dreadful thing, if by any act
of mine, I should cause you to reconsider your arrangement with
Professor Lancaster. I have written to the said professor, and have
told him that it is not improbable that I shall soon marry. I don't
know yet to what lady I shall be united, but I believe in the truth
of the adage, 'that all things come to those who can not wait.'
They are in such a hurry that they take what they can get.

"If you do not think that this is a good letter, please send it back
and I will write another. What I am trying to say is, that I would
sacrifice my future wife, no matter who she may be, to see you
happy. And now believe me always

"Your most devoted acquaintance,

"CLAUDE LOCKER.

"P.S.--Wouldn't it be a glorious thing if you were to be married in
church with all the rejected suitors as groomsmen and Lancaster as
an old Roman conqueror with the captive princess tied behind!"

Now that all the turmoil of her life was over, and Olive at peace with
herself, her thoughts dwelt with some persistency upon two of her
rejected suitors. Until now she had had but little comprehension of the
love a man may feel for a woman--perhaps because she herself never
loved--but now she looked back upon that period of her life at
Broadstone with a good deal of compunction. At that time it had seemed
to her that it really made very little difference to her three lovers
which one she accepted, or if she rejected them all. But now she asked
herself if it could be possible that Du Brant and Hemphill had for her
anything of the feeling she now had for Dick Lancaster. (Locker did not
trouble her mind at all.) If so, she had treated them with a cruel and
shameful carelessness. She had really intended to marry one of them, but
not from any good and kind feeling; she was actuated solely by pique and
self-interest; and she had, perhaps, sacrificed honest love to her
selfishness; and, what was worse, had treated it with what certainly
appeared like contempt, although she certainly had not intended that.

She felt truly sorry, and cast about in her mind for some means of
reparation. She could think of but one way: to find for each of them a
very nice girl--a great deal nicer than herself--and to marry