Our Gentleman Boarder 



up to her sister and put her arms about her 

 and laid her pretty head upon her shoulder. 



''Dear, dear Mary," she said, tearfully. 



Mary put her away and closed the book. 

 " Don't, dear," she said quite gently, and 

 left the room. 



She loved Arthur Trevanion whole 

 heartedly. He was the first man beside 

 her father and brother she had ever 

 deemed it possible to love, the first man 

 she had ever met on her own level of 

 thought and feeling. His love had glori- 

 fied every hour of her work-a-day present, 

 and had shown her the future as a new 

 created world, where all her long-pent 

 aspirations might dare to try their wings, 

 and all her dreams find their most sacred 

 fulfilment. But since he did not need her, 

 since her love was so little to him what his 

 love was to her, her pride rose irresistibly 

 and cut her off from all possible discussion 

 of him, or his motives and reasons. She 

 wanted the little world she lived in to think 

 that for her he no longer existed, that he 

 had gone utterly out of her heart and 

 thought, and she bore herself as if this were 

 indeed the truth, however she may have 

 clung to him in secret hope and passionate 

 prayer. From that time she treated all 

 idea of marriage for herself as a curious 

 136 



