Margaret Maliphant

								

that at the Grange he never knew what the time was; he believed we kept
our clocks all wrong. Then he said that he could not wait any longer
for father that evening, but would come to see him in the morning. He
went up to Joyce, and held out his hand. She shook herself, as though
to rouse herself from a dream, and rose. This time it was no mistake of
mine. Captain Forrester held Joyce's hand a long while.
"Good-bye--till to-morrow morning," said he, in a low voice.
She did not answer, and he turned to me.
"Good-night, Miss Margaret," he said, and there was a ring in his
voice--an impressiveness even towards me--which seemed to say that
something particular had happened.
When he was gone, I felt that I must know what it was. This barrier of
reserve between two sisters was ridiculous.
"Joyce," said I, half impatiently, "have you nothing to tell me?"
She looked up at me. A flush spread itself all over her neck and face,
her short upper lip trembled a little--it always did with any emotion.
"Yes," answered she, simply; "Captain Forrester wants to marry me."
I did not reply. Now that it had come to this pass as I wished, I was
frightened, as I have said.
But Joyce was looking up at me with an appealing look in her eyes. I
stooped down and kissed her.
"You dear old thing," I said; "I'm so glad. I hoped he had--I have
hoped all along he would."
"I thought you wished it," she said, with child-like simplicity.
I laughed.
"Of course I knew from the very beginning that he would fall in love
with you," I said.
"Oh, Margaret, don't say that!" pleaded she. And then, after a pause,
with a little sigh she added, "I should have thought he would have been
wiser than to fall in love with a country girl, when there must be so
many town girls who are better fitted to him."
"Nonsense!" cried I. "The woman who is fitted to a man is the woman
whom he loves."
"Do you think so?" murmured she, diffidently.
"Why, of course," I cried, warming as I went on, and forgetting my own
doubts in laughing at hers. "A man doesn't marry a woman for the number
of languages that she speaks, and that kind of thing--at least not a
man like Captain Forrester. I don't know how you can misjudge him so.
Don't you believe that he loves you?"
"Oh yes," she murmured again; "I think that he loves me."
I said no more for a while. Joyce's attitude puzzled me. That she
should speak so diffidently of the adoration of a man who had
addressed to her the passionate words which I had overheard, passed my
comprehension.
I fell to wondering what was her feeling towards him. More than ever I
felt that she had passed beyond me into a world of which I knew only in
dreams. I had risen now, and stood over the fire.
"I always dreamed of something like that for you, Joyce," said I. "I
always felt that you weren't a bit suited to marry a country bumpkin,
but I never pictured to myself anything so good as this for you. Mother