wretched vanity; could not a man be kind and friendly with me, but I must suppose he had lost his head, and fall in love with him myself, a little fool! as though I had never had a lover, or heard a love word in my life, and was ready to leap at the ghostliest shadow of a man's light fancy!
I stand still to think, suddenly, of how thoroughly George is avenged, of how I have come to suffer all the pains that I laid on him; I can feel for him now, my poor fellow! as I never felt before; truly pity is sometimes a selfish thing. I think that, considering our youth and the few opportunities that we have had of gambling, George and I show as clean a sheet of bankruptcy in our heart affairs as could be seen anywhere. We shall be able to mingle our sighs and groans in a pleasing duet by the river side, for I know now very certainly that, difficult as I have always found it to look upon George as my future husband, when nothing more than a girl's idle fancy stood between, we are now as utterly separated as though either or both of us lay in our coffins.
His instinct warned him truly, when he stood before me and entreated me not to come on this visit! had I not in truth done better to stay at Silverbridge? Might I not have come to love my yellow-haired laddie, and never had my heart wakened by the Prince Charming who came too late? My heart is sore as I think of the words I shall have to speak to him, sweet, pleasant-sounding words, bright with truth; "I have fallen in love with somebody, George, who is in love with somebody else." That is plain enough at all events. I think I must have loved that other ever since the old Charteris days without knowing it. Was it his memory, I wonder, that made my eyes so fastidious when they rested on George? Was I ever unconsciously comparing my fair-browed lover with the dark strong face that I had seen soften and pale under the lips of the woman he loved, and who loved him? Were George's Bunny blue eyes but handsome, commom-place bits of
