"What has become of her? One never hears of her."

"She died soon after."

"I am sorry I spoke of her; I didn't know."

"Oh, it doesn't matter." Then after a long silence, Willy said: "I
hear your engagement is broken off."

"Yes." Frank drew a long and expressive breath, and, with melodramatic
movements of the shoulders, he sighed. "I have not seen you since. Oh,
I had terrible scenes with the father. They had a house up the river.
I followed them, and put up at the Angler's Hotel. She told her father
that I must be allowed to come to the house, and he had to give way.
You don't know the river? Well, it is wonderful to awake at Maidenhead
in the morning and hear the sparrows twittering in a piece of tangled
vine; to see that great piece of water flowing so mildly in all the
pretty summer weather. We used to live in flannels, and spent long
afternoons together in the boat--we had such a spiffing boat, as light
and as clean in the water as a fish--and we used to linger in the
bulrushes, and come back when the moon was rising with our hands full
of flowers."

"But why was it broken off?"

"My uncle, old Mount Rorke, wants me to marry an heiress, and I have
nothing except what he allows me, or scarcely anything. She used to
wear a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the shadow fell over her face. I
made a lot of sketches. I must show them to you one of these days when