is so good of him because the awkwardness of my situation has really come about by my fault in getting wish me joy remember i say you are to and you mustn t refuse � your affectionate cousin mary staggered under the news could eat no breaks fast and kept on drinking tea because his mouth was so dry then presently he went back to his work and laughed the usual bitter laugh of a man so confronted everything seemed turning to satire and yet what could the poor girl do he asked himself and felt worse than shedding tears the obscure oh mary he said as he worked you don t know what marriage means could it be possible that his announcement of his own marriage had pricked her on to this just as his visit to her when in liquor may have pricked her on to her engagement to be sure there seemed to exist these other and sufficient reasons practical social for her decision but sue was not a very practical or calculating person and he was compelled to think that a at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way to s probable representations that the best course to prove how were the suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him off hand as in fulfilment of an ordinary engagement sue had in fact been placed in an awkward corner poor sue he determined to play the to make the best of it and support her but he could not write the requested good wishes for a day or two meanwhile there came another note from his impatient little dear will you give me away i have nobody else who could do it so conveniently as you being the only married relation i have here on the spot even if my father were friendly enough to be willing which he isn t i hope you won t think it a trouble i have been looking at the marriage service in the prayer book and it seems to me very humiliating that a away should be required at all according to the ceremony as there printed my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure but i don t choose him somebody gives me to him like a she ass or or any other domestic animal bless your exalted views of woman o but i forget i am no longer privileged to you � ever mary himself up to heroic key and replied my dear sue � of course i wish you joy and also of course i will give you away what i suggest is that as you have j at no house of your own you do not marry from your school friend s but from mine it would be more proper i think since i am as you say the person nearest related to you in this part of the world i don t see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way surely you care a bit about me still � ever your affectionate what had on him even more than the signature was a little sting he had been silent on � the phrase married relation what an idiot it made him seem as her lover if sue had written that in satire he could hardly forgive her if in suffering � ah that was another thing his offer of his lodging must have commended itself to at any rate for the school master sent him a line of warm thanks accepting the convenience sue also thanked him immediately moved into more quarters as much to escape the of the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of sue s unpleasant experience as for the sake of room then sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding and decided after inquiry that she should come into residence on the following saturday which would allow of a ten days stay in the city prior to the ceremony sufficiently representing a residence of fifteen she arrived by the ten o clock train on the day not going to meet her at the station by her special request that he should not lose a morning s work and pay she said if this were her true reason but so well by this time did he know sue that the remembrance of their mutual at might he thought have weighed with her in this when he came home to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment she lived in the same house with him but on a different floor and they saw each other little an occasional the obscure supper being the only meal they took together when sue s manner was something like that of a scared child what she felt he did not know their conversation was mechanical though she did not look pale or ill came frequently but mostly when was absent on the morning of the wedding when had given himself a holiday sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this curious interval in his room � the parlor � which he had hired for the period of sue s residence seeing as women do how helpless he was in making the place comfortable she about what s the matter she said suddenly he was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands looking into a which seemed to be out on the table cloth nothing you are father you know that s what they call the man who gives you away could have said s age him to be called that but he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort she talked incessantly as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection and before the meal was over both he and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new 