would soon learn to be very sparing of your visits.  For this reason it was that Grace saw very little of John; that she never now had a sisterly conversation with him; that she preferred arranging all those little business matters, in which it would be convenient to have a masculine appeal, solely and singly by herself.  The thing was never referred to in any conversation between them.  It was perfectly understood without words.  There are friends between whom and us has shut the coffin-lid; and there are others between whom and us stand sacred duties, considerations never to be enough reverenced, which forbid us to seek their society, or to ask to lean on them either in joy or sorrow:  the whole thing as regards them must be postponed until the future life.  Such had been Grace’s conclusion with regard to her brother.  She well knew that any attempt to restore their former intimacy would only diminish and destroy what little chance of happiness yet remained to him; and it may therefore be imagined with what changed eyes she read Walter Sydenham’s letter from those of years ago.

There was a sound of stamping feet at the front door; and John came in, all ruddy and snow-powdered, but looking, on the whole, uncommonly cheerful.

“Well, Gracie,” he said, “the fact is, I shall have to let Lillie go to New York for a week or two, to see those Follingsbees.  Hang them!  But what’s the matter, Gracie?  Have you been crying, or sitting up all night reading, or what?”

The fact was, that Gracie had for once been indulging in a good cry, rather pitying herself for her loneliness, now that the offer of relief had come.  She laughed, though; and, handing John her letter, said,—­

“Look here, John! here’s a letter I have just had from Walter Sydenham.”

John broke out into a loud, hilarious laugh.

“The blessed old brick!” said he.  “Has he turned up again?”

“Read the letter, John,” said Grace.  “I don’t know exactly how to answer it.”

John read the letter, and seemed to grow more and more quiet as he read it.  Then he came and stood by Grace, and stroked her hair gently.

“I wish, Gracie dear,” he said, “you had asked my advice about this matter years ago.  You loved Walter,—­I can see you did; and you sent him off on my account.  It is just too bad!  Of all the men I ever knew, he was the one I should have been best pleased to have you marry!”

“It was not wholly on your account, John.  You know there was our father,” said Grace.

“Yes, yes, Gracie; but he would have preferred to see you well married.  He would not have been so selfish, nor I either.  It is your self-abnegation, you dear over-good women, that makes us men seem selfish.  We should be as good as you are, if you would give us the chance.  I think, Gracie, though you’re not aware of it, there is a spice of Pharisaism in the way in which you good girls allow us men to swallow you up without ever telling us what you are doing.  I often wondered about your intimacy with Sydenham, and why it never came to any thing; and I can but half forgive you.  How selfish I must have seemed!”