him, I have not spoken his name for years! Your father approved of Mr.
Linmere, and while you were yet a child you were betrothed. And when your
father died, what did you promise him on his deathbed?"

Margie grew white as the ribbons at her throat.

"I promised him that I would _try_ and fulfil his requirements."

"That you would _try_! Yes. And that was equal to giving an unqualified
assent. You know the conditions of the will, I believe?"

"I do. If I marry without your consent under the age of twenty-one, I
forfeit my patrimony. And I am nineteen now. And I shall not marry
without your consent."

"Margie, you must marry Mr. Linmere. Do not hope to do differently. It
is your duty. He has lived single all these years waiting for you. He
will be kind to you, and you will be happy. Prepare to receive him with
becoming respect."

Mr. Trevlyn considered his duty performed, and went out for his customary
walk.

At dinner Mr. Linmere arrived. Margie met him with cold composure. He
scanned her fair face and almost faultless form, with the eye of a
connoisseur, and congratulated himself on the fortune which was to give
him, such a bride without the perplexity of a wooing. She was beautiful
and attractive, and he had feared she might be ugly, which would have
been a dampener on his satisfaction. True, her wealth would have
counter-balanced any degree of personal deformity; but Mr. Paul Linmere