Ethelyn's buried hopes--the tomb she had sworn never to unlock again;
but now, as her fingers lingered a moment amid the mementos of the years
when, in her girlish ignorance, she had been so happy, she felt her
resolution giving way, and sitting down upon the floor, with her long
hair unfastened and falling loosely about her, she bowed her head over
buried treasures, and dropped into their grave the bitterest tears she
had ever shed. Then, as there swept over her some better impulse,
whispering of the wrong she was doing to her promised husband, she said:

"I will not leave them here to madden me again some other day. I will
burn them, every one."

There were matches within her reach, while the little fireplace was not
far away, and, sitting just where she was, Ethelyn Grant burned one
after another, letters and notes, some directed in schoolboy style, and
others showing a manlier hand, as the dates grew more recent and the
envelopes bore a more modern and fashionable look. Over one, the
freshest and the last, Ethelyn lingered a moment, her eyes growing dark
with passion, and her lips twitching nervously as she read:

"BOSTON, April--

"Dear Ethie: I reckon mother is right, after all. She generally is, you
know, so we may as well be resigned, and believe it wicked for cousins
to marry each other. Of course I can never like Nettie as I have liked
you, and I feel a twinge every time I remember the dear old times. But
what must be must, and there's no use fretting. Do you remember old
Colonel Markham's nephew from out West--the one who wore the short pants
and the rusty crape on his hat when he visited his uncle, in Chicopee,
some years ago? I mean the chap who helped you over the fence the time