Will, however, is not always subservient to one's wishes, and during the first few days succeeding the incident of that night Maggie often found herself wishing Arthur Carrollton had never come to Hillsdale, he made her so wretched, so unhappy. Insensibly, too, she became a very little unamiable, speaking pettishly to her grandmother, disrespectfully to Mrs. Jeffrey, haughtily to Anna, and rarely to Mr. Carrollton, who after the lapse of two or three weeks began to talk of returning home in the same vessel with Anna Jeffrey, at which time his health would be fully restored. Then, indeed, did Maggie awake to the reality that while her hand was plighted to one, she loved another--not as in days gone by she had loved Henry Warner, but with a deeper, more absorbing love. With this knowledge, too, there came the thought that Arthur Carrollton had once loved her, and but for the engagement now so much regretted he would ere this have told her so. But it was too late! too late! He would never feel toward her again as he once had felt, and bitter tears she shed as she contemplated the fast-coming future, when Arthur Carrollton would be gone, or shudderingly thought of the time when Henry Warner would return to claim her promise. "I cannot, cannot marry him," she cried, "until I've torn that other image from my heart!" and then for many days she strove to recall the olden love in vain; for, planted on the sandy soil of childhood, as it were, it had been outgrown, and would never again spring into life. "I will write to him exactly how it is," she said at last; "will tell him that the affection I felt for him could not have been what a wife should feel for her husband. I was young, had seen nothing of the world, knew nothing of gentlemen's society, and when he came with his handsome face and winning ways my interest was awakened. Sympathy, too, for his misfortune increased that interest, which grandma's opposition tended in no wise to diminish. But it has died out, that fancied love, and I cannot bring it back. Still, if he insists, I will keep my word, and when he comes next autumn I will not tell him 'No.'" Maggie was very calm when this decision was reached, and opening her writing desk she wrote just as she said she would, begging him to forgive her if she had done him wrong, and beseeching Rose to comfort him as only a sister like her could do. "And remember," she wrote at the close, "remember that sooner than see you very unhappy, I will marry you, will try to be a faithful wife; though, Henry, I would rather not--oh, so much rather not!"