ed such a righteous chance of making her
feel bad."

"But I don't want to make her feel bad."

"Just a little? You will never convince people that you are unworldly
this way. Even Uncle Jerry wouldn't do that."

"You and Uncle Jerry are very much alike," cried Margaret, laughing in
spite of herself--"both of you as bad as you can be."

"But, dear, we don't pretend, do we?" asked Carmen, innocently.

To some of us at Brandon, Margaret's letter was scarcely a surprise,
though it emphasized a divergence we had been conscious of. But with Miss
Forsythe it was far otherwise. The coolness of Margaret's tone filled her
with alarm; it was the premonition of a future which she did not dare to
face.

There was a passage in the letter which she did not show; not that it was
unfeeling, she told my wife afterwards, but that it exhibited a
worldly-mindedness that she could not have conceived of in Margaret. She
could bear separation from the girl on whom she had bestowed her
tenderest affection, that she had schooled herself to expect upon her
marriage--that, indeed, was only a part of her life of willing
self-sacrifice--their paths must lie apart, and she could hope to see
little of her. But what she could not bear was the separation in spirit,
the wrenching apart of sympathy, the loss of her heart, and the thought
of her going farther and farther away into that world whose cynical and
materialistic view of life made her shudder. I think there are few
tragedies in life comparable to this to a sensitive, trusting soul--not
death itself, with its gracious healing and oblivion and pathos. Family
quarrels have something sustaining in them, something of a sense of wrong
and even indignation to keep up the spirits. There was no family quarrel
here, no indignation, just simple, helpless grief and sense of loss. In
one sense it seemed to the gentle spinster that her own life was ended,
she had lived so in this girl--ever since she came to her a child, in
long curls and short frocks, the sweetest, most trustful, mischievous,
affectionate thing. These two then never had had any secrets, never any
pleasure, never any griefs they did not share. She had seen the child's
mind unfold, the girl's grace and intelligence, the woman's character.
Oh, Margaret, she cried, to herself, if you only knew what you are to me!

Margaret's little chamber in the cottage was always kept ready for her,
much in the condition she had left it. She might come b