Randall grew more and more excited. “What is the matter? Have you ceased to trust me, Menie? What do you mean?” “I mean nothing to make you angry--I never did,” said Menie, sadly. “I’m not very old yet, but I never grieved anybody, of my own will, all my days. Ill never came long ago; or, if it came, nobody ever blamed it on me. I wish you would not mind me,” she said, looking up suddenly. “I came out here, because my mind was not fit to speak to anybody--because I wanted to complain to myself where nobody should hear of my unthankfulness. I would not have said a word to anybody--not a word. There was no harm in thinking within my own heart.” “There is harm in hiding your thoughts from me,” said Randall. “Come, Menie, you are not to cheat me of my rights. I was angry--forgive me; but I am not angry now. Menie, my poor sorrowful girl, what ails you? Has something happened? Menie, you must tell _me_.” “It is just you I must not tell,” said Menie, under her breath. Then she wavered a moment, as if the wind swayed her light figure, and held her in hesitating uncertainty; and then, with a sudden effort, she stood firm, apart from the wall she had been leaning on, and apart, too, from Randall’s extended arm. “Yes, I will tell you,” said Menie, seriously. “You mind what happened a year ago, Randall: you mind what we did and what we said then--‘For ever and for ever.’” Randall took her hand tenderly into his own, “for ever and for ever.” It was the words of their troth-plight. “I will keep it in my heart,” said poor Menie. “I will never change in that, but keep it night and day in my heart. Randall, we are far apart already. I have a little world you do not choose to share: you are entering a greater world, where I can never have any place. God speed you, and God go with you, Randall Home. You will be a great man: you will prosper and increase; and what would you do with poor Southland Menie, who cannot help yon in your race? Randall, we will be good friends: we will part now, and say farewell.” Abrupt as her speech was Menie’s manner of speaking. She had to hurry over these disjointed words, lest her sobs should overtake and choke her utterance ere they were done. Randall shook his head with displeased impatience. “This is mere folly, Menie. What does it mean? Cannot you tell me simply and frankly what is the matter, without such a preface as this? But indeed I know very well what it means. It means that I am to yield something--to undertake something--to reconcile myself to some necessity or other, distasteful to me. But why commence so tragically?--the threat should come at the end, not at the beginning.” “I make no threat,” said Menie, growing colder and colder, more and more upright and rigid; “I mean to say nothing that can make you angry. Already I have been very unhappy. I dare not venture, with our changed fortunes, to make a life-long trial--I dare not.”