The fervent nonsense which might naturally have disgusted or at least wearied her she endured at first, as a necessary drawback; but it was soon toned down by the consciousness that she was guiding me, as usual, in paths best, if not always most agreeable to myself. She made no stipulations of secrecy with regard to our engagement. Her frank nature apparently admitted of no dim recesses to which only one must have the key. After a few days, therefore, I resolved to disclose my new relations to the Brays, though I felt a most unaccountable reluctance to so doing. Mr. Bray received the information with indifference; Mrs. Bray looked surprised, and said she always knew Amos was respected, still she shouldn't have felt certain that the "school-ma'am" (in which capacity Miss Darry was spoken of in the village) would like to marry his apprentice; and Annie stole from her seat at the breakfast-table, and, laying her little hand on my shoulder, with a troubled look in her large blue eyes, asked,-- "Do you really mean it, Sandy,--that you have promised to marry the proud, handsome woman at Hillside?" "Certainly, my little Annie," I replied; "I have promised to love and care for her, and I suppose we shall be married by-and-by. Miss Darry is not proud; it is only because you are too young to understand her that you think so." "But I understand Mrs. Lang, and I thought I understood you, Sandy. Are you sure she will help you to grow happier and better?" The tears were in her eyes. What induced these two--my betrothed wife and little sister--to have such doubts of each other? "Of course I am sure of her, Annie. She has helped me to grow more of a man ever since I have known her; and as to being happier, two persons loving each other must, of course, be happy together. Besides," I added, smothering a sudden doubt, and assuming the philosopher, "we were not placed in this world to be happy, Annie,--only to make of ourselves all we can in every way." "And to make others happy, Sandy," she added, in a wistful, tremulous way, as though her heart were full. "Yes, certainly; and when I have a wife and home, I will make my little Annie so. She shall live with me, and confess that my wife is not proud, but noble and kind." "No, Sandy, I shall not leave my mother, father, and brother Tom, to live with any one. I shall work with them and for them," she returned, with a womanly dignity I had never before noticed in her. "You do not love me, then, Annie?" I asked, selfishly grasping at the affection I had so lightly prized. "Yes, Sandy, as you love me; but not as we either of us care for our own,--you for Miss Darry, I for my mother, father, and Tom."