"Dear Aunt Nancy," said the girl, with evident effort, "I am so sorry to disappoint you. I wish for your sake that I had been another sort of woman; but I shall never marry. I know you think I am wrong, but there is something which always tells me I am right, and I must follow another way. I should only wreck my life, and other people's. Most girls have an instinct towards marrying, but mine is all against it, and God knew best when He made me care more for another fashion of life. Don't make me seem unkind! I dare say that I can put it all into words better by and by, but I can never be more certain of it in my own heart than now."
"Sit down a minute," said Miss Prince, slowly. "George can wait. But, Anna, I believe that you are in love with him, and that you are doing wrong to the poor lad, and to yourself, and to me. I lost the best happiness of my life for a whim, and you wish to throw away yours for a theory. I hope you will be guided by me. I have come to love you very much, and it seems as if this would be so reasonable."
"It does make a difference to me that he loves me," confessed the girl. "It is not easy to turn away from him," she said,--still standing, and looking taller than ever, and even thin, with a curious tenseness of her whole being. "It is something that I have found it hard to fight against, but it is not my whole self longing for his love and his companionship. If I heard he had gone to the other side of the world for years and years, I should be glad now and not sorry. I know that all the world's sympathy and all tradition fight on his side; but I can look forward and see something a thousand times better than being his wife, and living here in Dunport keeping his house, and trying to forget all that nature fitted me to do. You don't understand, Aunt Nancy. I wish you could! You see it all another way." And the tears started to the eager young eyes. "Don't you know that Cousin Walter said this very day that the wind which sets one vessel on the right course may set another on the wrong?"
"Nonsense, my dear," said the mistress of the house. "I don't think this is the proper time for you to explain yourself at any rate. I dare say the fresh air will do you good and put everything right too. You have worked yourself into a great excitement over nothing. Don't go out looking so desperate to the poor fellow; he will think strangely of it;" and the girl went out through the wide hall, and wished she were far away from all this trouble.