"She'll be glad to see you, I know. Indeed, she has appreciated all you've done for her—those beautiful articles, for example—more than you quite realize, perhaps."
But the young man shook his head, and said with a kind of bitterness: "I've never done anything for her in my life."
And then, as he took the lady's hand to say good-bye, he asked abruptly: "But why shouldn't I know what's happened, Mrs. Wing?"
"Oh," said Mary's mother, and hesitated.
"Yes, why shouldn't you?" said she, and hesitated again.
"Well," she began again slowly, "it's nothing so serious, as I said,—just a fresh disappointment for Mary,—that is really all it amounts to with me. Very likely Donald has intimated to you that he was not going to Wyoming?"
The caller stared at her dumbfounded.
"Not going to Wyoming! Why!—why not?"
"Well, he feels, in his new circumstances," said Mrs. Wing, uneasily, "that it would be more suitable to accept the position in New York. But—I really had little opportunity to discuss it with Mary. She seemed—to be frank—much disturbed, she had so set her heart on this work in the West—"
"More suitable!... How?"