It was their last night. Priscilla wasn’t going back to school again. Her aunt, she said, was only paying for a year. They lay together in the big bed, dim, face to face, talking. “Hatty--if you wanted to do something most awfully, more than anything else in the world, and it was wrong, would you be able not to do it?” “I hope so. I _think_ I would, because I’d know if I did it would make Papa and Mamma unhappy.” “Yes, but suppose it was giving up something you wanted, something you loved more than them--could you?” “Yes. If it was wrong for me to have it. And I couldn’t love anything more than them.” “But if you did, you’d give it up.” “I’d have to.” “Hatty--I couldn’t.” “Oh, yes, _you_ could if _I_ could.” “No. No....” “How do you know you couldn’t?” “Because I haven’t. I--I oughtn’t to have gone on staying here. My father’s ill. They wanted me to go to them and I wouldn’t go.” “Oh, Prissie----” “There, you see. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was so happy here with you. I couldn’t give it up.” “If your father had been like Papa you would have.” “Yes. I’d do anything for _him_, because he’s your father. It’s you I couldn’t give up.” “You’ll have to some day.” “When--when?” “When somebody else comes. When you’re married.” “I shall never marry. Never. I shall never want anybody but you. If we could always be together.... I can’t think _why_ people marry, Hatty.” “Still,” Hatty said, “they do.” “It’s because they haven’t ever cared as you and me care.... Hatty, if I don’t marry anybody, _you_ won’t, will you?” “I’m not thinking of marrying anybody.” “No. But promise, promise on your honor you won’t ever.” “I’d rather not _promise_. You see, I might. I shall love you all the same, Priscilla, all my life.” “No, you won’t. It’ll all be different. I love you more than you love me. But I shall love you all my life and it won’t be different. I shall never marry.” “Perhaps I shan’t, either,” Harriett said. They exchanged gifts. Harriett gave Priscilla a rosewood writing desk inlaid with mother-o’-pearl, and Priscilla gave Harriett a pocket-handkerchief case she had made herself of fine gray canvas embroidered with blue flowers like a sampler and lined with blue and white plaid silk. On the top part you read “Pocket handkerchiefs” in blue lettering, and on the bottom “Harriett Frean,” and, tucked away in one corner, “Priscilla Heaven: September, 1861.” IV She remembered the conversation. Her father sitting, straight and slender, in his chair, talking in that quiet voice of his that never went sharp or deep or quavering, that paused now and then on an amused inflection, his long lips straightening between the perpendicular grooves of his smile. She loved his straight, slender face, clean-shaven, the straight, slightly jutting jaw, the dark-blue flattish eyes under the black eyebrows, the silver-grizzled hair that fitted close like a cap, curling in a silver brim above his ears.