"I hope you love Evert Beekman, dearest, dearest Beulah?"
"What a question, Maud! Do you suppose I could stand up before a minister of God, and plight my faith to a man I did not love?--Why have you seemed to doubt it?"
"I do not doubt it--I am very foolish, for I know you are conscientious as the saints in heaven--and yet, Beulah, I think I could scarce be so tranquil about one I loved."
The gentle Beulah smiled, but she no longer felt uneasiness. She understood the impulses and sentiments of her own pure but tranquil nature too well, to distrust herself; and she could easily imagine that Maud would not be as composed under similar circumstances.
"Perhaps it is well, sister of mine," she answered laughing, though blushing, "that you are so resolved to remain single; for one hardly knows where to find a suitor sufficiently devoted and ethereal for your taste. No one pleased you last winter, though the least encouragement would have Brought a dozen to your feet; and here there is no one you can possibly have, unless it be dear, good, old Mr. Woods."
Maud compressed her lips, and really looked stern, so determined was she to command herself; then she answered somewhat in her sister's vein--
"It is very true," she said, "there is no hero for me to accept, unless it be dear Mr. Woods; and he, poor man, has had one wife that cured him of any desire to possess another, they say."
"Mr. Woods! I never knew that he was married. Who can have told you this, Maud?"
"I got it from Robert"--answered the other, hesitating a little. "He was talking one day of such things."
"What things, dear?"