be happier without than with me. We are not at all alike. But I thank
you for asking me all the same, and now it is time for me to go, if I
take the four o'clock train. Father will be expecting me."

Burton went with her to the train, and saw her into the car, and bought
her _Harper's Monthly_, and bade her good-by, and then, in passing out,
met and lifted his hat to the Misses Grey, Lucy and Geraldine, who had
been visiting in Boston, and were returning to Allington.

This encounter drove his sister from his mind, and made him think of his
aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and
gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him
the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the
haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached
his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and
carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress
of his home.

It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing.
Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very
promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his
suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise
as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.

"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister
Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate
the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is
good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand
dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I
would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am