"It would be a very suitable marriage," said Bertha; "I have felt that from the first. There is no one more beautiful than Agnes—no one sweeter—no one more fit"—
She pushed her seat back from the hearth and rose from it.
"The fire is too warm," she said. "I have been sitting before it too long."
There was some ice-water upon a side table and she went to it and poured out a glass, and drank it slowly. Then she took a seat by the centre-table and spoke again, as she idly turned over the leaves of a magazine without looking at it.
"When first Agnes came here," she said, "I thought of it. I remember that when I presented Philip to her I watched to see if she impressed him as she does most people."
"She did," said the professor. "I remember his speaking of it afterward, and saying what a charm hers was, and that her beauty must touch a man's best nature."
"That was very good," said Bertha, faintly smiling. "And it was very like him. And since then," she added, "you say he has spoken of her often in the same way and as he speaks of no one else?"
"Again and again," answered the professor. "The truth is, my dear, I am fond of speaking of her myself, and have occasionally led him in that direction. I have wished for him what you have wished."
"And we have both of us," she said, half sadly, "been unkind to poor Laurence."