did Miss Jack do so as thoroughly as she should have done, for Miss
Jack knew more about such matters than did poor Maurice. "If you
like Marion, why don't you marry her?"

Miss Jack had once said to him; and this coming from Miss Jack, who
was made of money, was a great deal.

"She wouldn't have me," Maurice had answered.

"That's more than you know or I either," was Miss Jack's reply. "But
if you like to try, I'll help you."

With reference to this, Maurice as he left Miss Jack's residence on
his return to Mount Pleasant, had declared that Marian Leslie was not
worth an honest man's love.

"Psha!" Miss Jack replied; "Marian will do like other girls. When
you marry a wife I suppose you mean to be master?"

"At any rate I shan't marry her," said Maurice. And so he went his
way back to Hanover with a sore heart. And no wonder, for that was
the very day on which Lieutenant Ewing had asked the question about
the musk rose.

But there was a dogged constancy of feeling about Maurice which could
not allow him to disburden himself of his love. When he was again at
Mount Pleasant among his sugar-canes and hogsheads he could not help
thinking about Marian. It is true he always thought of her as flying
round that ball-room in Ewing's arms, or looking up with rapt
admiration into that young parson's face; and so he got but little