now," Eleanor said.

"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest.
Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?"

"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just
thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to
marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know."

"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes."

"He might make one," Eleanor persisted.

Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had
anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the
sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to
tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from
the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have
been shared with her at once.

She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were
connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity
nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in
Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell
her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not
so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely
thing?"

"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking.

"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now
that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my
feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people
I've grown, Eleanor?"

"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're
very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret."

"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything
about Peter yet," she added suddenly.

The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant.

"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a
long time."

"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for
a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor."

Eleanor put her hand to her throat.

"What kind of news?" she asked huskily.

"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He
said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet.
We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two."

"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah."

She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of
her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out