“Is it really true,” she said, “that Eric is coming home for Christmas? He said nothing about it in his last letter. How do they know?” “There is such a thing as the telegraph, Effie. You know why he is coming. He is coming for your marriage.” Effie gave a start and quick recoil. “But that is not going to be--oh, not yet, not for a long time.” “I thought that everybody wished it to take place at the New Year.” “Not me,” said the girl. She took no care at all now of the leaves she had gathered with so much trouble, but strewed the ground with them as if for a procession to pass. “Uncle John,” she went on quickly and tremulously, “why should it be soon? I am quite young. Sometimes I feel just like a little child, though I may not be so very young in years.” “Nineteen!” “Yes, I know it is not very young. I shall be twenty next year. At twenty you understand things better; you are a great deal more responsible. Why should there be any hurry? _He_ is young too. You might help me to make them all see it. Everything is nice enough as it is now. Why should we go and alter, and make it all different? Oh, I wish you would speak to them, Uncle John.” “My dear, your stepmother has just given me a commission to bring you over to their way of thinking. I am so loth to lose you that my heart takes your side: but, Effie----” “To lose me!” she cried, flinging away the “rubbitch” altogether, and seizing his arm with both her hands. “Oh no, no, that can never be!” “No, it will never be: and yet it will be as soon as you’re married: and there is a puzzle for you, my bonnie dear. The worst of it is that you will be quite content, and see that it is natural it should be so: but I will not be content. That is what people call the course of nature. But for all that, I am not going to plead for myself. Effie, the change has begun already. A little while ago, and there was no man in the world that had any right to interfere with your own wishes: but now you know the thing is done. It is as much done as if you had been married for years. You must now not think only of what pleases yourself, but of what pleases him.” Effie was silent for some time, and went slowly along clinging to her uncle’s arm. At last she said in a low tone, “But he is pleased. He said he would try to please me; that was all that was said.” Uncle John shook his head. “That may be all that is said, and it is all a young man thinks when he is in love. But, my dear, that means that you must please him. Everything is reciprocal in this world. And the moment you give your consent that he is to please you, you pledge yourself to consider and please him.” “But he is pleased. Oh! he says he will do whatever I wish.”