"You are speaking as though you knew," she said, looking at him inquiringly; but he turned her words aside, and she forgot them. "What have I done to deserve this happiness?" she asked of Margaret later, when the two went to their rooms. "Much," said Margaret, gently. "Have you ever lived for yourself?--never since I knew you! I was thinking only to-day that it was not good for me to be with you, because you make so much of me and so little of yourself, that I am growing narrow and selfish." "Nonsense! my dear," answered Mrs. Dorriman. "Oh! Margaret, if you knew how I hate being alone and having to decide things myself--now think of the comfort of having some one to go to!" "And so able to help you," said Margaret, feelingly. She also felt this burden of loneliness; felt it all the more because of the contrast between her own life and that of others. Christie was much moved when the news was told her. "It is coming near, my dear," she said to Margaret, "in the Lord's good time." Margaret did not comprehend her. Jean was most amusing upon the subject. "And what for no!" she asked, when Mrs. Dorriman told her. "You have never had real true love, though Mr. Dorriman, poor man, was aye fond of you in his way; but he was a crookit stick, with no pith in him. This man's a man to be proud of. There's stuff in him, and you will be able to lean on him. It's not a light puff of wind will blow him down!" Mrs. Dorriman wrote to her brother, and, in a few words which she found difficult to write, told him of her engagement. She also said that she trusted Margaret would fill her place and live with him. "I think Margaret will be more to you than I could ever be." She wound up by saying, "You have been kind, but I have always felt that you were disappointed in me. I am not strong-minded enough to be a good companion for one so accustomed to more intelligence." Had she deliberately steeped her pen in gall she could not have given him a bitterer moment. He was physically unfit for any excitement or worry. His illness had gained rapidly upon him, and he suffered terribly at times. He received a letter from Margaret which also troubled him greatly. Knowing him to be well off, and that he did not care about money for its own sake, she wrote with confidence to him about Grace. "She has given up the money left to her after me which I refused to take. I am afraid that giving it up will embarrass her and Paul. You have often offered to settle money upon me--to give me much that I did not want--will you do something for my sister? will you arrange something to make up to her for what she has given up? I think you feel with me, that accepting that money would humiliate me whether it was accepted by Grace or by myself." A few days and then came the answer. "DEAR MARGARET,