mother in a perfect passion of
weeping, and told her that Cousin George had asked her to be his wife; and
that she had never dreamed of such a thing; and she thought he was very
unkind to be so angry with her; how could she have supposed he cared for
her in that way, when he had been like her elder brother all his life.

"Why, he seems almost as old as papa," said poor Annie, sobbing and
crying, "and he ought to have known that I should not kiss him and put my
arms around him if--if"--she could not explain; but she knew!

Annie had gone to her own room, ill. My aunt and I sat together in the
library silently crying; we were wretched. "Oh, if George would only have
waited," said Aunt Ann.

"I think it would have made no difference, aunty," said I.

"No, I am afraid not," replied she, and each knew that the other was
thinking of Edward Neal.

George Ware left town the next day. He sent me a short note. He could not
see any one, he said, and begged me to give a farewell kiss for him to
"the sweet mother of my Annie. For mine she is, and will be in heaven,
though she will be the wife of Edward Neal on earth."

When I next saw our Annie she was Edward Neal's promised bride. A severe
fit of illness, the result of all these excitements, confined me to my
room for three weeks after George's departure; and I knew only from Aunt
Ann's lips the events which had followed upon it.

George Ware's presence on that first evening had brought revelation to
Edward Neal as well as to all the other members of that circle. That very
night he had told his parents that Annie would be his wife.

The next night, while poor George was swiftly borne away, Edward was
sitting in my uncle's library, listening with a blanched cheek to the
story of Annie's old engagement. My uncle's sense of honor would not let
him withhold anything from the man seeking her for his wife. The pain soon
passed by, when he was told that she had that very day refused her cousin,
and betrayed almost resentment at his offer. Edward Neal had not a
sufficiently subtle nature, nor acquaintance enough with psychological
phenomena to be disturbed by any fears for the future. He dismissed it all
as an inexplicable result of the disease, but a fixed fact, and a great
and blessed fortune for him. My uncle, however, was less easily assured.
He insisted upon delay, and upon consulting the same physicians who had
studied Annie's case before. They all agreed that she was now a pe