nly stricken with contrition.
What were we doing? We had no right to be listening to this pitiful
interview. The pain and protest in his voice had suddenly banished all
the humour from it, and left naught but the bare, stark tragedy. We rose
and tiptoed out of the room, wholesomely ashamed of ourselves.

When Mr. Malcolm MacPherson had gone, after an hour of useless pleading,
Aunt Olivia came up to us, pale and prim and determined, and told us
that there was to be no wedding. We could not pretend surprise, but
Peggy ventured a faint protest.

"Oh, Aunt Olivia, do you think you have done right?"

"It was the only thing I could do," said Aunt Olivia stonily. "I could
not marry Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and I told him so. Please tell your
father--and kindly say nothing more to me about the matter."

Then Aunt Olivia went downstairs, got a broom, and swept up the mud Mr.
Malcolm MacPherson had tracked over the steps.

Peggy and I went home and told father. We felt very flat, but there was
nothing to be done or said. Father laughed at the whole thing, but I
could not laugh. I was sorry for Mr. Malcolm MacPherson and, though I
was angry with her, I was sorry for Aunt Olivia, too. Plainly she felt
badly enough over her vanished hopes and plans, but she had developed a
strange and baffling reserve which nothing could pierce.

"It's nothing but a chronic case of old-maidism," said father
impatiently.

Things were very dull for a week. We saw no more of Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson and we missed him dreadfully. Aunt Olivia was inscrutable,
and worked with fierceness at superfluous tasks.

One evening father came home with some news. "Malcolm MacPherson is
leaving on the 7:30 train for the west," he said. "He has rented the
Avonlea place and he's off. They say he is mad as a hatter at the trick
Olivia played on him."

After tea Peggy and I went over to see Aunt Olivia, who had asked our
advice about a wrapper. She was sewing as for dear life, and her face
was primmer and colder than ever. I wondered if she knew of Mr. Malcolm
MacPherson's departure. Delicacy forbade me to mention it but Peggy had
no such scruples.

"Well, Aunt Olivia, your beau is off," she announced cheerfully. "You
won't be bothered with him again. He is leaving on the mail train for
the west."

Aunt Olivia dropped her sewing and stood up. I have never seen anything
like the transformation that came over her. It was so thorough and
sudden as to be almost un