ut, poor darling."

She seemed indifferent, but she was not. She had been much stirred. She
had a strange feeling that something had happened to her while she had
listened to Maxwell's speech. Some string had broken and her romance was
out of tune.

She lay awake for a long time that night, thinking it over. She grew hot
with the thought of the limitations of her previous conception of her
lover. She had considered him a sort of background for the pleasant
things he could do for her. She had fitted him to the measure of the
boxes of candy that he had brought her, the luncheons in the House
restaurant, the bountiful hospitality of the farm. How lightly she had
looked down on him as he had stood below her on the stairs with her
candle in his hand. How casually she had accepted his kiss. She had a
sudden feeling that she must not let him kiss her again!

Early in the morning she went into Amy's room. "Amy," she said, "how
soon do you think we can go to Aunt Elizabeth's?"

"Aunt Elizabeth's? Why, Anne?"

"I want to leave here."

"To leave here?" Amy sat up. Even in the bright light of the morning her
face looked young. Good food and fresh air had done much for her. It had
been quite heavenly, too, to let care slip away, to have no thought of
what she should eat or what she should drink or what she should wear.
"To leave here? I thought you loved it, Anne."

"I've got to get away. I'm not going to marry Maxwell, Amy."

"Anne! What made you change your mind?"

"I can't tell you. Please don't ask me. But I wish you would write to
Aunt Elizabeth."

"I had a letter from her yesterday. She says we can come at any time.
But--have you told Max?"

"Not yet."

"Has he done anything?"

"No. It's just--that I can't marry him. Don't ask me, Amy." She broke
down in a storm of tears.

Amy, soothing her, wondered if after all Anne cared for Murray Flint. It
was, she felt, the only solution possible. Surely a girl would not throw
away a chance to marry a man like Maxwell Sears for nothing.

For Amy had learned in the days that she had spent at the farm that
Maxwell Sears was a man to reckon with. She was very grateful for what
he had done for her, and she had been glad of Anne's engagement. Murray
would perhaps be disappointed, but there would still be herself and
Ethel.

It was not easy to explain things to Maxwell.

"Why are you going now?" he demanded, and was impatient when they told
him that Aunt Elizabeth expect