‘Mary,’ she said to her cousin soon afterwards, ’Will sends his love to you.’

‘And what else does he say?’

‘I couldn’t tell you everything.  You shouldn’t expect it.’

‘I don’t expect it; but perhaps there may be something to be told.’

’Nothing that I need tell specially.  You, who know him so well, can imagine what he would say.’

‘Dear Will!  I am sure he would mean to write what was pleasant.’

Then the matter would have dropped had Clara been so minded but she, in truth, was anxious to be forced to talk about the letter.  She wished to be urged by Mary to do that which Will urged her to do or, at least, to learn whether Mary thought that her brother’s wish might be gratified without impropriety.  ‘Don’t you think we ought to live here?’ she said.

‘By all means if you both like it.’

’He is so good so unselfish, that he will only ask me to do what I like best.’

‘And which would you like best?’

’I think he ought to live here because it is the old family property.  I confess that the name goes for something with me.  He says that he would build a new house.’

‘Does he think he could have it ready by the time you are married?’

’Ah that is just the difficulty.  Perhaps, after all, you had better read his letter.  I don’t know why I should not show it to you.  It will only tell you what you know already that he is the most generous fellow in all the world.’  Then Mary read the letter.  ’What am I to say to him?’ Clara asked.  ’It seems so hard to refuse anything to one who is so true, and good, and generous.’

‘It is hard.’

‘But you see my poor, dear father’s death has been so recent.’

‘I hardly know,’ said Mary, ‘how the world feels about such things.’

‘I think we ought to wait at least twelve months,’ said Clara, very sadly.

’Poor Will!  He will be broken-hearted a dozen times before that.  But then, when his happiness does come, he will be all the happier.’  Clara, when she heard this, almost hated her cousin Mary not for her own sake, but on Will’s account.  Will trusted so implicitly to his sister, and yet she could not make a better fight for him than this!  It almost seemed that Mary was indifferent to her brother’s happiness.  Had Will been her brother, Clara thought, and had any girl asked her advice under similar circumstances, she was sure that she would have answered in a different way.  She would have told such girl that her first duty was owing to the man who was to be her husband, and would not have said a word to her about the feeling of the world.  After all, what did the feeling of the world signify to them, who were going to be all the world to each other?

On that afternoon she went up to Mrs Askerton’s; and succeeded in getting advice from her also, though she did not show Will’s letter to that lady.  ‘Of course, I know what he says,’ said Mrs Askerton.  ’Unless I have mistaken the man, he wants to be married tomorrow.’