'Uncertain--but Cheviot and Mary must settle their affairs in good time; I've missed all the weddings in the family hitherto, and won't be balked of Polly's. I say, Ethel, you can't mean me not to go and wish her joy.' 'We are by no means come to joy yet,' said Ethel; 'poor Mary is overset by the suddenness of the thing.' 'Why, I thought it was all fixed.' 'Nothing less so,' said the Doctor. 'One would think it was a naiad that had had an offer from the mountains next, for she has been shedding a perfect river of tears ever since; and all that the united discernment of the family has yet gathered is, that she cries rather more when we tell her she is right to say No than when we tell her she is right to say Yes.' 'I declare, Ethel, you must let me go up to her.' 'But, Harry, I promised she should hear no more about it to-night. You must say nothing unless she begins.' And thinking a quiet night's rest, free from further excitement, the best chance of a rational day, Ethel was glad that her mission resulted in the report, 'Far too nearly asleep to be disturbed;' but on the way up to bed, soft as Harry's foot-falls always were, a voice came down the stairs, 'That's Harry! Oh, come!' and with a face of triumph turned back to meet Ethel's glance of discomfited warning, he bounded up, to be met by Mary in her dressing-gown. 'O, Harry, why didn't you come?' as she threw her arms round his neck. 'They wouldn't let me.' 'I did think I heard you; but when no one came I thought it was only Richard, till I heard the dear old step, and then I knew. O, Harry!' and still she gasped, with her head on his shoulder. 'They said you must be quiet.' 'O Harry! did you hear?' 'Yes, indeed,' holding her closer, 'and heartily glad I am; I know him as well as if I had sailed with him, and I could not wish you in better hands.' 'But--O, Harry dear--' and there was a struggle with a sob between each word, 'indeed--I won't--mind if you had rather not.' 'Do you mean that you don't like him?' 'I should see him, you know, and perhaps he would not mind--he could always come and talk to papa in the evenings.' 'And is that what you want to put a poor man off with, Mary?' 'Only--only--if you don't want me to--' 'I not want you to--? Why, Mary, isn't it the very best thing I could want for you? What are you thinking about?' 'Don't you remember, when you came home after your wound, you said I--I mustn't--' and she fell into such a paroxysm of crying that he had quite to hold her up in his arms, and though his voice was merry, there was a moisture on his eyelashes. 'Oh, you Polly! You're a caution against deluding the infant mind! Was that all? Was that what made you distract them all? Why not have said so?' 'Oh, never! They would have said you were foolish.'