To Mr. Harcourt, however, who hoped for some small share of happiness in existence, whose career had not been a smooth one, who loved rather to hear of the bright sunshine than of winter’s clouds, Bessie’s poetical reveries would have been utterly distasteful; and as the young lady anxiously laid herself out to please him in other matters, so she anxiously selected her talk to suit his tastes. No one on earth could have proved a more submissive mistress than Bessie Ormson; to those who were learned in the ways of women she might have seemed a trifle too submissive for everything in the engagement to be right. As for Heather, she delighted in seeing matters progress so smoothly. With a half-jealous feeling gnawing at her heart, she watched, during her rare moments of leisure, Gilbert’s devotion to the lady of his choice. What a lover he appeared in Heather’s eyes! with what an ever-increasing pain she saw him follow Bessie about; fearful lest the very winds of heaven should touch her too roughly. How tender he was; how thoughtful; how mindful of her lightest wish; how his face brightened when she entered the room; with what looks of pride and affection he followed her about! It was all a wonderful revelation to the woman who had never experienced such devotion; who was becoming conscious that in the book of her own existence some of the sweetest pages of most lives had never been penned; who had never known, till she beheld love showered upon another, that such love had never been proffered to her. It was so wonderful a revelation, in fact, that she could not help remarking one day to Miss Hope:— “How very fond Mr. Harcourt must be of Bessie!” “Yes,” answered that lady, who was surveying the pair through her eye-glass,—“he seems to like her well enough; more than she is worth, in my opinion. He is fonder of her than she is of him. She is only marrying him for a home, my dear.” “For a home!” repeated Heather, in amazement. “Yes—or to get away from home, if you prefer that way of putting it. The match will not turn out well. Remember, I said so;” and Miss Hope took another look at the engaged couple, while Heather’s thoughts flew back to the words Bessie had spoken as they stood together side by side on the grassy slope with their backs turned towards the west: “I wish I were more worthy his devotion;” and of that other more vehement sentence spoken later on during the course of the same evening, when the girl said: “If you tell me to do it this minute, I will stay with you all my life and never marry any one.”