d, and though it was dark I could feel something different. I
was so nervous you would have thought I was the one.

I was over by the lilacs; but they didn't see me. I didn't like to move.
It might have been ruinous, so I held my breath and waited.

When they got to the door they stopped again, and presently he held out
his hand to say good-bye. The way he did it, the way he looked at her
made me just know, and I got right down on my knees under the
lilac-bush, and when he'd gone I sang, "Praise God, from whom all
blessings flow." Sang it loud.

I didn't care who heard. I wasn't telling why I was thankful. Just
telling I was. Oh, Mary Martha Cary, to think of her being your really,
truly Aunt! The very next thing to a mother!

XIV

THE HURT OF HAPPINESS

I wouldn't like to put on paper how I feel to-day. Uncle Parke has gone.
Gone back to Michigan. I'm such a mixture of feelings that I don't know
which I've got the most of, gladness or sadness or happiness or
miserableness, and I'd rather cry as much as I want than have as much
ice-cream as I could hold.

But I'm not going to cry. I don't like cryers, and, besides, I haven't a
place to do it in private. I wouldn't let Miss Katherine see me, not if
I died of choking. I ought to be rejoicing, and I am; but the female
heart is beyond understanding, Miss Becky Cole says, and it is. Mine is.
I could die of thankfulness, but I'd like first to cry as much as I
could if I let go.

They are engaged. Uncle Parke and Miss Katherine are, and they are to be
married on the twenty-seventh of June. That's my birthday. I will be
thirteen on the twenty-seventh of June.

They told me about it night before last. I was out on the porch, and
Miss Katherine called me and told me she and Doctor Alden wanted me to
go to walk with them. I knew what was coming. Knew in a flash. But I
pretended not to, and thanked her ever so much, and told her I'd just
love to go.

We walked on down to the Calverton road, talking about nothing, and
making out it was our usual night walk, but when we got to the seven
maples Uncle Parke stopped.

"Suppose we sit down," he said. "It's too warm to walk far to-night."
And after we sat he threw his hat on the ground, then leaned over and
took my hands in his.

"Mary Cary," he began. And though his eyes were smiling, his voice was
real quivering. I was noticing, and it was. "Mary Cary, Katherine and I
have brought you with us to-night to ask if y