"If he could have married me then, it wouldn't have mattered," said Miss Grace. "I knew that he was good and true, you see; so that I never doubted him. But he was poor, and they worried me nearly to my grave. I was very weak," said Miss Grace.
"And I suppose he went and married some one else in a fit of hopelessness," said Elma tragically. "What a nice wife you would have made, Miss Grace!"
Miss Grace started a trifle, and looked anxiously at Elma. She did not seem to hear the compliment.
"Oh, we all have our little stories," she said. "But don't be extravagant of your beautiful youth, my dear."
"I don't feel youthful or beautiful in any way," said Elma. "I think it's the fever. I feel as though I had been born a hundred years ago. I wish I could keep from shivering whenever anything either exciting or lovely happens. Now, I never was so happy in my life as I was yesterday over Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud, and I was so shaky that I simply burst into tears. What's the good of being youthful if one feels like that?"
"Wait till you have a holiday, dear, you will soon get over that."
Miss Grace did her best to cheer her up. Elma's thoughts ran back to the story she had heard.
"Miss Grace," she asked, "this man that you were engaged to, was he----"
The door opened and Saunders appeared.
"Dr. Merryweather," said he.