‘Dear grandmother, I believe you are beginning to love me,’ she said, bending over to arrange the invalid’s pillows in the July morning, the fresh mountain air blowing in upon old and young from the great open window, like a caress.

‘I am beginning to know you,’ answered Lady Maulevrier, gently.

’I think it is the magic of love, Mary, that has sweetened and softened your nature, and endeared you to me.  I think you have grown ever so much sweeter a girl since your engagement.  Or it may be that you were the same always, and it was I who was blind.  Lesbia was all in all to me.  All in all—­and now I am nothing to her,’ she murmured, to herself rather than to Mary.

’I am so proud to think that you see an improvement in me since my engagement,’ said Mary, modestly.  ’I have tried very hard to improve myself, so that I might be more worthy of him.’

’You are worthy, Mary, worthy of the best and the highest:  and I believe that, although you are making what the world calls a very bad match, you are marrying wisely.  You are wedding yourself to a life of obscurity; but what does that matter, if it be a happy life?  I have known what it is to pursue the phantom fortune, and to find youth and hope and happiness vanish from the pathway which I followed.’

’Dear grandmother, I wish you had been able to marry the man of your choice,’ answered Mary, tenderly.

She was ready to weep over that wasted life of her grandmother’s; to weep for that forced parting of true lovers, albeit the tragedy was half a century old.

’I should have been a happier woman and a better woman if fate had been kind to me, Mary,’ answered Lady Maulevrier, gravely; ’and now that I am daily drawing nearer the land of shadows, I will not stand in the way of faithful lovers.  I have a fancy, Mary, that I have not many months to live.’

‘Only an invalid’s fancy,’ said Mary, stooping down to kiss the pale forehead, so full of thought and care; ’only a morbid fancy, nursed in the monotony of this quiet room.  Maulevrier and Jack and I must find some way of amusing you.’

’You will never amuse me out of that conviction, my dear.  I can see the shadows lengthening and the sands running out.  There are but a few grains left in the glass, Mary; and while those last I should like to see you and Mr. Hammond married.  I should like to feel that your fate is settled before I go.  God knows what confusion and trouble may follow my death.’

This was said with a sharp ring of despair.

‘I am not going to leave you, grandmother,’ said Mary.

’Not even for the man you love?  You are a good girl, Mary.  Lesbia has forsaken me for a lesser temptation.’

’Grandmother, that is hardly fair.  It was your own wish to have Lesbia presented this season,’ remonstrated Mary, loyal to the absent.