"Thank you, I don't want one. I hate the very mention of the thing. I wish, instead of marrying, we could all be dead and buried." And, whether from weariness, or excitement, or a sudden, unutterable pang at seeing my sister, my playfellow, my handsome Lisa, sitting there, talking as she talked, and acting as she acted, I could bear up no longer. I burst out sobbing. She was very much astonished, and somewhat touched, I suppose, for she cried too, a little, and we kissed one another several times, which we are not much in the habit of doing.--Till, suddenly, I recollected Treherne, the orange-tree, and "the usual thing." Her lips seemed to burn me. "Oh, Lisa, I wish you wouldn't. I do wish you wouldn't." "Wouldn't what? Don't you want me to be engaged and married, child?" "Not in that way." "In what way, then?" I could not tell. I did not know. "After the fashion of Francis and Penelope, perhaps? Falling in love like a couple of babies, before they knew their own minds, and then being tied together, and keeping the thing on in a stupid, meaningless, tiresome way, till she is growing into an elderly woman, and he--no, thank you, I have seen quite enough of early loves and long engagements. I always meant to have somebody whom I could marry at once, and be done with it." There was a half-truth in what she said, though I could not then find the other half to fit into it, and prove that her satisfactory circle of reasoning was partly formed of absolute, untenable falsehood, for false I am sure it was. Though I cannot argue it, can hardly understand it, I _feel it_. There must be a truth somewhere. Love cannot be all a lie. My sister and I talked a few minutes longer, and then she rose, and said she must go to bed. "Will you not wish me happiness? 'Tis very unkind of you." I told her outright that I did not think as she thought on these matters, but that she had made her choice, and I hoped it would be a happy one. "I am sure of it. Now go to bed, and don't cry any more, there's a good girl, for there really is nothing to cry about. You shall have the very prettiest bridesmaid's dress I can afford, and Treherne Court will be such a nice house for you to visit at. Good night, Dora." Strange, altogether strange! And writing it all down this morning, I feel it stranger than ever, still. CHAPTER V. HIS STORY. I will set down, if only to get rid of them, a few incidents of this day. Trivial they are--ludicrously so--to any one but me: yet they have left me sitting with my head in my hands, stupid and idle, starting, each hour, at the boom of the bell we took at Sebastopol--starting and shivering like a nervous child.