Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/403

  best to-night, and even better to-morrow," she said, smiling, significantly. She came and put her hands on Maimie's shoulders, and kissing her, said: "Have you told your Aunt Murray who is coming to-morrow? I am sure I'm very thankful, my dear, you will be very happy. It is an excellent match. Half the girls in town will be wild with envy. He has written a very manly letter to your father, and I am sure he is a noble fellow, and he has excellent prospects. But we must hurry down to dinner," she said, turning to Mrs. Murray, who with a look of sadness on her pale face, left the room without a word.

"Ranald is not coming," said Maimie, when her Aunt Murray had gone.

"Indeed, from what your father says," cried Aunt Frank, indignantly, "I do not very well see how he could. He has been most impertinent."

"You are not to say that, Aunt Frank," cried Maimie. "Ranald could not be impertinent, and I will not hear it." Her tone was so haughty and fierce that Aunt Frank thought it wiser to pursue this subject no further.

"Well," she said, as she turned to leave the room, "I'm very glad he has the grace to keep away to-night. He has always struck me as a young man of some presumption."

When the door closed upon her Maimie tore the note from her bosom and pressed it again and again to her lips: "Oh, Ranald, Ranald," she cried, "I love you! I love you! Oh, why can it not be? Oh, I cannot—I cannot give him up!" She threw herself