"Don't, don't leave us!" she whispered, clinging to Mary, in her astonishment and distress. "You see what my life is here! I am without love, without sympathy. I have only my books and my music and my drawings and the sea! but for them my heart would starve. Oh, Mary; it has been so different since you came: I have had you to love." Mary Ursula put her arm round Ethel. She herself standing in so much need of love, had felt the tender affection of this fresh young girl, already entwining itself around her heart, as the grateful tree feels the tendrils of the clinging vine. "You will be what I shall most regret in leaving Greylands' Rest, Ethel. But, my dear, we can meet constantly. You can see me at the Nunnery when you will; and I shall come here sometimes." "Look here, Mary Ursula," said Harry, all his lightness checked. "Sooner than you should go to that old Nunnery, I'll burn it down." "No, you will not, Harry." "I will. The crazy old building won't be much loss to the place, and the ruins would be picturesque." He was so speaking only to cover his real concern. The project was no less displeasing to him than to his father. "You do not mean this, Mary Ursula!" But the grave look of her earnest face effectually answered him. "It is I who shall miss you," bewailed Ethel. "Oh, can nothing be done?" "Nothing," said Mary, smiling. "Our paths, Ethel, will probably lie far apart in life. You will marry, and social ties will form about you. I----" she broke off suddenly. "I intend to marry Ethel myself," said Harry, kicking hack a large live coal that flew far out into the hearth. "Be quiet, Harry," said Ethel, a shade of annoyance in her tone. "Why, you know it's true," he returned, without looking at her. "True! When we are like brother and sister!" Miss Castlemaine glanced from one to the other. She did not know how to take this. That Harry liked Ethel and was in the habit of paying her attention, told nothing; for he did the same by many other young ladies. "It was only last week I asked her to fix the day," said Harry. "And I told you to go and talk nonsense elsewhere; not to me," retorted Ethel, her tone betraying her real vexation. "If you won't have me, Ethel, you'll drive me to desperation. I might go off and marry one of the Grey Sisters in revenge. It should be Sister Ann. She is a charming picture; one to take a young man's heart by storm." Mary Ursula looked keenly at him. In all this there was a semblance of something not real. It struck her that he was wanting to make it appear he wished for Ethel, when in fact he did not. "Harry," she cried, speaking upon impulse, "you have not, I hope, been falling in love with anybody undesirable?" "But I have," said Harry, his face flushing. "Don't I tell you who it is?--Sister Ann. Mark you though, cousin mine, you shall never be allowed to make one of those Grey Sisters."