Maggie returned to St. Benet’s, imagining herself quite heart-whole; but happiness shone out of her eyes, and there was a new tender ring in her voice for which she could not account to herself, and which added a new fascination to her beauty.
Shortly after the commencement of the term, Hammond met Miss Oliphant by accident just outside Kingsdene.
“I was going to post a letter to you,” he said. His face was unusually pale, his eyes full of joy and yet of solicitude.
“You can tell me what you have written,” replied Maggie, in her gayest voice.
“No, I would rather you read my letter.”
He thrust it into her hand and immediately, to her astonishment, left her.
As she walked home through the frosty air she opened Hammond’s letter, and read its contents. It contained an earnest appeal for her love, and an assurance that all the happiness of the writer’s future life depended on her consenting to marry him. Would she be his wife when her three years’ term at St. Benet’s came to an end?
No letter could be more manly, more simple. Its contents went straight to the depths of a heart easily swayed and full of strong affection.
“Yes, I love him,” whispered the girl; “I did not know it until I read this letter, but I am sure of myself now. Yes, I love him better than anyone else in the world.”
A joyous light filled Maggie’s brown eyes; her heart was gay. She rushed to Annabel’s room to tell her news, and to claim the sympathy which had never hitherto been denied her, and which was essential to the completion of her happiness.