CHAPTER XXXI.
A QUESTION Towards the last of April, Mrs.Mason and Mary returned to their old home in the country.

On Ella's account, Mrs.Campbell had decided to remain in the city during a part of the summer, and she labored hard to keep Mary also, offering as a last inducement to give Mrs.Mason a home too.

But Mrs.Mason preferred her own house in Chicopee, and thither Mary accompanied her, promising, however, to spend the next winter with her aunt, who wept at parting with her more than she would probably have done had it been Ella.
Mary had partially engaged to teach the school in Rice Corner, but George, assuming a kind of authority over her, declared she should not.
"I don't want your eyes to grow dim and your cheeks pale, in that little pent-up room," said he.

"You know I've been there and seen for myself." Mary colored, for George's manner of late had puzzled her, and Jenny had more than once whispered in her ear "I know George loves you, for he looks at you just as William does at me, only a little more so!" Ida, too, had once mischievously addressed her as "Cousin," adding that there was no one among her acquaintances whom she would as willingly call by that name.

"When I was a little girl," said she, "they used to tease me about George, but I'd as soon think of marrying my brother.