"If he had only popped," Anne said to her sister, "it would have been all right.

He would never have gone back from his word." "My dear," said Annabella, "I wish you would not talk about popping.

It is a terrible word." "I shouldn't, to any one except you," said Anne.
There had come to Silverbridge some few months since, on a visit to Mrs.Walker, a young lady from Allington, in the neighbouring county, between whom and Grace Crawley there had grown up from circumstances a warm friendship.

Grace had a cousin in London,--a clerk high up and well-to-do in a public office, a nephew of her mother's,--and this cousin was, and for years had been, violently smitten in love for this young lady.

But the young lady's tale had been sad, and though she acknowledged feelings of most affectionate friendship for the cousin, she could not bring herself to acknowledge more.