Miss Grace was not at all embarrassed in the usual way of old maids. She gazed over the white and gold drawing-room, and one saw the spark of flint in her eyes. "Not engaged, dear, but all the inclination to be. Ah, yes, I had the inclination. And he invited me, but affairs at that time made it unsuitable." "Oh, Miss Grace, only unsuitable?" Elma’s heart went out to her. Beneath everything she knew it must be Miss Annie. "Yes, dear. And the others found him different to what I did. Selfish and dictatorial, you know. Nothing he did seemed to fit in to what they expected. He grew annoyed with them. I sometimes hardly wonder at that. It made him appear to be what they really thought him. And in the end I asked him to go." "Oh, Miss Grace!" Elma’s voice was a tragedy. "It was not fair, it was not fair to him or to you. He didn’t want to marry the others. What did it matter what they thought?" "If he could have married me then, it wouldn’t have mattered," said Miss Grace. "I knew that he was good and true, you see; so that I never doubted him. But he was poor, and they worried me nearly to my grave. I was very weak," said Miss Grace. "And I suppose he went and married some one else in a fit of hopelessness," said Elma tragically. "What a nice wife you would have made, Miss Grace!" Miss Grace started a trifle, and looked anxiously at Elma. She did not seem to hear the compliment. "Oh, we all have our little stories," she said. "But don’t be extravagant of your beautiful youth, my dear." "I don’t feel youthful or beautiful in any way," said Elma. "I think it’s the fever. I feel as though I had been born a hundred years ago. I wish I could keep from shivering whenever anything either exciting or lovely happens. Now, I never was so happy in my life as I was yesterday over Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud, and I was so shaky that I simply burst into tears. What’s the good of being youthful if one feels like that?" "Wait till you have a holiday, dear, you will soon get over that." Miss Grace did her best to cheer her up. Elma’s thoughts ran back to the story she had heard. "Miss Grace," she asked, "this man that you were engaged to, was he----" The door opened and Saunders appeared. "Dr. Merryweather," said he. Miss Grace rose in a direct manner. She controlled her voice with a little nervous cough. "This is just the person to tell you that you ought to be off for a change," she said as they shook hands with Dr. Merryweather. Miss Grace told him about Elma’s shakiness as though it were a real disease. Mrs. Leighton had never looked upon it as anything more than "just a mannerism," as Miss Grace put it. Dr. Merryweather ran his keen eye over Elma’s flushed face. "You mustn’t have too many engagements in your family," he said, "while you remain a convalescent." He had been only then arranging with Mrs. Leighton that she should take Elma off for a trip.