That she did meet his expectations, was evident from the fact that his object in stopping at Chicopee, was to settle a question which she alone could decide.  He had asked her to accompany him to the school-house, because it was there his resolution had been formed, and it was there he would make it known.  Mary, too, had something which she wished to say to him.  She would thank him for his kindness to her and her parents’ memory; but the moment she commenced talking upon the subject, George stopped her, and for the first time since they were children, placed his arm around her waist, and kissing her smooth white brow, said, “Shall I tell you, Mary, how you can repay it?”

She did not reply, and he continued, “Give me a husband’s right to care for you, and I shall be repaid a thousand fold.”

Whatever Mary’s answer might have been, and indeed we are not sure that she answered at all, George was satisfied; and when he told her how dear she was to him, how long he had loved her, and asked if he might not hope that he, too, had been remembered, the little golden locket which she placed in his hand was a sufficient reply.  Without Ida’s aid he had heard of the relationship existing between Mrs. Campbell and Mary, but it made no difference with him.  His mind had long been made up, and in taking Mary for his wife, he felt that he was receiving the best of Heaven’s blessings.

Until the shadows of evening fell around them they sat there, talking of the future, which George said should be all one bright dream of happiness to the young girl at his side, who from the very fulness of her joy wept as she thought how strange it was that she should be the wife of George Moreland, whom many a dashing belle had tried in vain to win.  The next morning George went back to Boston, promising to return in a week or two, when he should expect Mary to accompany him to Glenwood, as he wished to see Rose once more before she died.

CHAPTER XXXII.

GOING HOME.

The windows of Rose Lincoln’s chamber were open, and the balmy air of May came in, kissing the white brow of the sick girl, and whispering to her of swelling buds and fair young blossoms, which its breath had wakened into life, and which she would never see.

“Has Henry come?” she asked of her father, and in the tones of her voice there was an unusual gentleness, for just as she was dying Rose was learning to live.

For a time she had seemed so indifferent and obstinate, that Mrs. Howland had almost despaired.  But night after night, when her daughter thought she slept, she prayed for the young girl, that she might not die until she had first learned the way of eternal life.  And, as if in answer to her prayers, Rose gradually began to listen, and as she listened, she wept, wondering though why her grandmother thought her so much more wicked than any one else.  Again, in a sudden burst of passion, she would send her from the room, saying, “she had heard preaching enough, for she wasn’t going to die,—­she wouldn’t die any way.”