"Do you want to know how I love Martin," said Maggie, "so that there shall be no mistake about it? Well, I can't tell you. I couldn't tell any one. I don't know how I love him, but I know that I shall never change or alter all my life--even though he never comes back again. I've given over being silly," she went on. "There were days and days at first when I just wanted to die. But now I'm going to make my own life and have a good time--and never stop loving Martin for one single second." "Supposing," said Miss Avies, "some one wanted to marry you? Would you?" "It would depend," said Maggie; "if I liked him and he really wanted me and I could help him I might. Only, of course, I'd tell him about Martin first." She went on after a little pause: "You see, Miss Avies, I haven't been very happy with my aunts, and I always thought it was their fault that I wasn't. But during these weeks when I've been lying in bed I saw that it was my own fault for being so gloomy about everything. Now that I've got Martin--" "Got him!" interrupted Miss Avies; "why, you've only just lost him!" "No, I haven't," answered Maggie. "He didn't go away because he hated me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn't want to do me any harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute than he'd ever done before. So I've nothing to spoil my memory of him. I daresay we wouldn't have got on well, together, I don't think I would ever have fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very long--but now I know that he loved me at the very moment he went away and wasn't thinking how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had or how irritating I could be." "But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say you loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting to part?" "We weren't always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren't together enough, but if we had been it wouldn't have meant that we didn't love one another. I don't think we'd ever been very happy, but being happy together doesn't seem to me the only sign of love. Love seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind of trouble and bother. I don't call tranquillity happiness." "Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us considering you so stupid--" "I'm not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said Maggie. "Why should I? I find I'm as good as any one else. I made Martin love me--even though it was only for a moment. So I'm going to be shy no longer." "And here was I thinking you heart-broken," said Miss Avies.