If I am mistaken, tell me so; but if I am not, if you can never be my wife, I will school myself to think of you as a brother would think of an only and darling sister." This letter produced a strange effect upon Mary.

She thought how much she was indebted to one who had stood so faithfully by her when all the world was dark and dreary.

She thought, too, of his kindness to the dead, and that appealed more strongly to her sympathy than aught else he had ever done for her.

There was no one to advise her, and acting upon the impulse of the moment, she sat down and commenced a letter, the nature of which she did not understand herself, and which if sent, would have given a different coloring to the whole of her after life.

She had written but one page, when the study bell rang, and she was obliged to put her letter by till the morrow.