"Nothing can come right out of nothing," said Mattie, passionately, and not too clearly; "I can't be worried like this, Ann. I have nothing to tell you; I am what I have always been. If there be a difference, it is only that I am getting older, and more world-worn. Won't you believe me?" "No, I won't. I think I know you well enough by this time, and aren't to be _done_ by any reason short of what's a true un. Oh! Mattie gal, you're not happy; you, who have done so much for happiness to other people--and this shan't be, if I can help it! You and Mr. Hinchford must get married; and if there's been a quarrel, _that'll_ mend, it." "Mr. Hinchford and I will never marry, Ann." "You mean it?" "Yes." "I don't see why," said Ann, reflectively. "Mr. Hinchford will marry Harriet Wesden--they are old lovers, and true ones." Ann Packet looked fixedly for awhile at Mattie, and then burst forth: "Let him! Pr'aps he's fitter for her than you, if he's weak-minded and babyish, and can't tell what's best for him. Let him pack up his traps and go--you can do without him." Ann Packet, carried away by the feelings of the moment, went on, in a higher key. "You're too good for him, and the likes of him, and ain't agoing begging because a pink-faced gal is set afore ye. You're young yet. You've people to love you, and take care on you--you shan't be lonely, and you shall get over all your disappintments and be as happy as the day is long. It isn't for you, Mattie, to fret yourself to death because a little trouble's come, and you can't shake it off yet--you'll show 'em that you've never been a fretting, and that you've got a consolation yet, that their goings on can't take away!" "Well, Ann, where would be your consolation?" asked Mattie. "Where you taught me to find it, big words and all--where you will never lose it, Mattie, good as you've growed." There was something touching in the manner with which Ann Packet snatched from the toilet-table the little Bible that always had a place there, and laid it suddenly in Mattie's lap. Mattie shivered, even cowered somewhat at the demonstration; it had been unexpected as that interview, and for the first time in her life Ann Packet took the vantage ground, and Mattie looked up to _her_. "When you turned good, Mattie," said Ann, "you turned to _that_--you read it to me, and tried to make me read it, telling me that there was comfort to be found there for my loneliness. I found it--so will you, child. _You_ can't miss what you found me!" "It does not follow," murmured Mattie.