"No, indeed. It was just for bread. Aunty was a 'second old woman'--and they got me in for 'utility,' as they call it. There was no one to care for me, and I was glad to earn an honest living; but like it! Never!" "You say there was no one to care for you?" said Harding gently. "Had you no friends--no parents?" Jane reddened painfully, and the sad look came quickly into her face. "My mother is dead, you see," she replied, with hesitancy, "and--and--I'd rather not speak of this any more, please." "Surely," he exclaimed hastily, "I've no right to catechize you. Pray forgive my asking at all. I ought to have been more careful. I know what trouble is, and how to feel for those who suffer." She looked at him earnestly. "You have suffered yourself, then--they were right when they said yours had not been a happy life?" "I have no right to whine--but happy--no, far from it." Jane's lovely face took on its softest and tenderest expression. "They said that lately you have been happier--gayer than ever before--and that people liked you--oh, ever so much better than they used to. Why is it that people like those the best who seem to need help and sympathy the least?" Jane leaned from the window as she spoke and toyed with some running vine that clambered to the casement. The grace and beauty of her figure were made conspicuous by the movement, and Harding paused a moment before he replied: "People like to be cheerful, I suppose, and people like others to be like themselves, I know. It is true that I have been unhappy--that my life has been morose and solitary. How much this has been my own fault and how much that of others, need not be said. But it is also true that of late I have been far happier. Shall I tell you why?" His voice was deep and earnest, and something in his eyes made the girl crimson again, and turn her own to the distant hills. "If you please," she faltered, in her low, musical contralto. "Shall I tell you too why I have built that cottage you are looking at?" he went on with increasing earnestness. "It is because it has been my hope, my prayer, that this sad, lonely life of mine was nearly over. It is because I have believed that after much pain, and doubt, and bitterness my trust in men might be brought back through my love for a woman. The cottage--it is for you, Jane. I love you, Jane. Do you hear me? From the moment I saw you, I loved you. I resolved to ask you to marry me. Jane, will you do so?" While he spoke the color had been fading steadily from her face, and when he stopped the girl was ashy pale. He looked at her anxiously and impatiently. "I--I--am--so sorry," she muttered at last, as if each word were a separate pain. "Sorry? God! Why?" Then with swift suspicion, "Jane, do you care for--are you engaged to some one?" She shook her head mournfully.