Delay, however, was necessary. The marriage could not take place until just before the Indians sailed for Canada, which would be in March, and Mary could obtain delay, only by a kind of compromise. She made her cousin himself the means of obtaining this, by reminding him that the least he could do for her, was to give her time to reconcile herself to so new an idea. He, not the least in love, and far from suspecting a rival, asked that the marriage might be put off for three months. This was all that was needed. On the night of the 16th March, Mary left home, and travelled under Bailey's guidance to Liverpool. There Christian met her. All had been arranged, and they were married, and started for Ireland. After a week or two of honeymoon, they went to Queenstown, and there joined the ship, which was carrying the rest of the party to Quebec.

It was during the two or three weeks spent in Ireland, and still more completely during the voyage, that all the fair fabric of the young wife's delusions fell to pieces.

The truth of Bailey's history was very different from what he said of himself. He had been long the disgrace and torment of his own relations in the United States, and at last, after years of every kind of vice, had been obliged to fly from his country under strong suspicions of forgery. He went to the north, and for a year or two lived a wild life full of adventure; during which he occupied himself diligently in becoming acquainted with the Indian tribes, learning some of their dialects, and trying by every means to ingratiate himself with them.

Probably at first, this was only for amusement, but after awhile, he seems to have entertained the idea of making a profit of his new associates. He soon found, however, that the more independent and uncivilized tribes, though they might form the most piquant exhibition, were too unmanageable for his purpose. He came down therefore to Canada, to seek for more promising materials. Here he met with exactly the opposite difficulty--most of the tribes were more or less civilized, and had, at any rate, advanced so far in knowledge of the world as to be unwilling to put themselves into his power. He soon saw that the best way of securing such a party as he wished, would be to find one Indian, whom he might make to some degree a confidant and partner in the enterprise, and who would naturally possess a stronger influence with the rest, than he could himself obtain. It was a long time before he succeeded in doing this; but when he did, it was to perfection. An island about fifty miles from Cacouna, called Moose Island, was then, and still is, occupied by a settlement of Ojibways. A Jesuit mission, established on the Canadian bank of the river, had been devoted to the conversion of these people, with so much success that nearly all of them were nominal Christians. For the rest, they lived in their own way, providing for themselves by hunting and fishing, and keeping their national customs and character almost unchanged. In the mission-house, however, a few children were brought up by the priests with the greatest care,--probably because it was by means of these boys, that they hoped more effectually to civilize the whole tribe. At any rate, they taught them all that they could have taught Europeans; having them completely in their own hands, there was no difficulty about this, and the more intelligent among them became good scholars. There was one boy, however, who distinguished himself above the rest, and was naturally the pride and favourite of the mission. He was an orphan, whom they had named Christian, and whom they were turning expressly for a priest. But when Christian was about sixteen, the mission was for the first time disturbed. Some Protestant missionaries invaded the island itself, and built their house close to the Indian wigwams. They spoke the language sufficiently to be understood, and took every means of making themselves acceptable to the people. They were men of great fervour and earnestness, and to the Indian senses, their religion, with its abundant hymns, and exclamatory prayers, had an attraction greater than that of the more decorous service to which they were accustomed. One by one, the so-called converts left the Jesuit church, and were re-converted with great acclamation. But when the infection reached their own pupils, their own particular and beloved flock, the priests were in despair; and the very first of their children to leave them, was Christian. He had been, for some time, tired of the sober and self-denying life which he was obliged to lead; and having gained all the advantages the priests could give him, and knowing that his profession of Protestantism would be hailed with the greatest joy by the new missionaries, he went to them, and so succeeded in persuading them of his sincerity, that he became as great a favourite as he had before been with his old teachers. The Jesuits, soon after, finding themselves almost entirely abandoned, gave up their mission and left the field to their opponents. How Christian spent the next few years it is not easy to tell. From the missionaries he learned to speak English perfectly well, and was for a time master of a school, which they established for the Indian children; but he lost their favour by the very same means by which he gained it. He was insincere in everything, and as he frequently visited both banks of the river, and was trusted to execute commissions for them, he had many opportunities for deceiving them. At last, he left the island altogether and joined a party of smugglers. With them he must have remained some time; but he had left them also and returned to the island, when Bailey came to the neighbourhood. They soon became acquainted; and Bailey, finding how exactly Christian suited his purpose, spared no pains to persuade him to join in collecting a sufficient number of his people for the expedition. In this he succeeded; but Christian was not to be imposed upon, and refused to stir in the matter, without an engagement from Bailey to pay him a considerable sum, on their return to Canada. Bailey was obliged to yield, and the agreement was signed, with a fixed determination to avoid keeping it, if possible. The other Indians were found without much trouble among those on the island, who, in spite of their change of teachers, were still in the same half-savage or more than half-savage state. A bad hunting season had reduced them to great misery, and a dozen of them were willing enough to undertake the voyage under the guidance of Christian, whose education had given him a kind of ascendancy to which he had no other claim, for the chieftainship, with which Bailey chose to invest him, was purely imaginary. Christian was a natural actor. Bailey understood perfectly what would suit the popular idea of an Indian chief, and the story which he intended to tell, so that, together, they succeeded admirably. They made a profitable tour, and their success culminated in London when they began to count leaders of fashion among their dupes.

It was at this moment of their success, that accident threw in their way a girl who was evidently well-born and susceptible, and whom a few inquiries proved to be an heiress. At first, Bailey had had some thought of himself winning this prize; but he had wit enough to see that he would not succeed, and that Christian might, which would be equally to his advantage. Christian cared little about it, but he let Bailey guide him, and so the prey fell into their hands.

So far, the story told had been intensely personal, and of the kind which must inevitably be coloured by the teller. From this point, Mrs.

Costello was no longer leading her daughter through places and scenes entirely strange. She paused, and faltered, yet began again with a sense of having surmounted her greatest difficulties, and from hence is perhaps the best narrator of her own life.

"When I found out," she went on, "how different the reality was from my dreams, I took no care to hide, either from Bailey or my husband, the horror I began to feel for them both. Christian took my reproaches carelessly--his education had not prevented him from regarding women as other Indians do--to him I was merely his squaw, the chief and most useful of his possessions, and it made no difference to him whether I was contented with my position or not. But Bailey was not quite so insensible; and when I spoke to him with the same bitterness as to my husband, he retorted, and took trouble to show me how my own folly had been as much to blame as their schemes, in drawing me into such a marriage. He explained to me precisely how, and why, I had been entrapped, and made me perceive that I was utterly helpless in their hands. There came, about the middle of our voyage, a time when I sunk into a kind of stupor; worn out with the misery of my disappointment, I gave up my whole mind to a gloomy passiveness. Morning after morning I crept out on deck, and sat all day leaning against the bulwarks, with a cloak drawn round me, seeing nothing but the waves and sky, and indifferent to wind or rain, or the hot sun which sometimes shone on me.

All this time I had taken no notice of the Indians, who for their part avoided me, and left me a portion of the deck always undisturbed. But one day as I sat as usual vacantly looking out to sea, I was disturbed by the cries of a child. The babies, although there were four or five in the party, were usually so quiet that the sound surprised me. I looked round, and saw the women gathered together in a group, consulting over the child, which still cried as if in violent pain. At last I got up, and went to the place, where I found that the poor little creature, a girl of about a year old, had fallen down a hatchway and broken her arm.

She had lost her mother in England, and was in the care of an elder sister, who hung over her in the greatest distress, while the other women were preparing to bandage the arm. I had had no idea till then how wretchedly these poor creatures were huddled together, without even such comforts as they were used to; but when I found that it was impossible for the sick child to be cared for in the miserable place where they lived, I began to come to myself a little, or rather to forget myself, and contrive something to help others.

"The child's sister, Mary, spoke a little French, so that we could manage to understand each other; and with shawls and pillows, we made a comfortable little bed, in an unoccupied space close to my cabin. There we nursed the poor little creature, which got well wonderfully soon, and Mary became my firm and faithful friend. It was she whom you saw a few weeks ago, when she came, hoping to bring me a useful warning.

"We were six weeks at sea; and when we reached Quebec, and had to take the steamboats, a new kind of misery began for me. I shrank from the sight of our fellow-passengers, for I felt that wherever we went, they looked at me curiously, and sometimes I heard remarks and speculations, which seemed to carry the sense of degradation to my very heart. But Mary and her little sister had done me good. I had already lost some of my pride, and began to remember that, however I might repent my marriage, I had entered into it of my own will, and could not now free myself either from its ties or duties. My husband seemed pleased with my change of manner towards him; he was not unkind, and I hoped that perhaps when we reached his own tribe, and I had a home to care for, my life might not yet be so hopelessly wretched as it appeared at first.

"The last part of our journey was made in waggons. When we were within a few hours' distance of Moose Island the others went on, while Bailey, Christian, and I, remained at a small wayside tavern. It was a wretched place, but they gave me a small room where I could be alone, and try to rest. The one adjoining it was Bailey's, and late in the evening I heard him and Christian go into it together. The partition was so thin that their voices reached me quite distinctly, and I soon found that they were disputing about something. From the day when, on board ship, Bailey had told me how they had entrapped me simply for the money to which I was entitled, there had never been any allusion made, in my presence, to the profit they expected to make of me. I could hear now, however, as their voices grew louder, that this was the cause of their dispute. I caught only broken sentences, and never knew how the quarrel ended, for in the morning Bailey was gone, and I had learned already that it was useless to question Christian. I had written from Quebec to my father.

The only answer I received was through his solicitor, who formally made over to me all my mother's fortune; but, of course, this did not happen until some weeks after our arrival at Moose Island.

"We remained three or four days at the tavern, and then removed to the island, where a small log-house had been got ready for me. It was clean and neat, though not better than the cottages of many farm-labourers in England, and I was so humbled that I never thought of complaining. It stood on a small marshy promontory at one end of the island, at a considerable distance from the village, and was more accessible by land than by water.

"In that house, Lucia, you were born; but not until three years of solitude, terror, and misery had almost broken my heart.

"As soon as ever we were settled in our home, which I tried to make comfortable and inviting according to my English ideas, Christian returned to the wandering and dissipated life he had led in the last few years before his journey to England. He was often away from me for many days without my knowing where he was, and I only heard from others, vague stories of his spending nights and days, drinking and gambling, on the American side of the river. At first, he always came back sober, and in good humour, and never left me without sufficient money for the few expenses which were necessary; but within six months this changed, and I began to suffer, not only from ill-usage, but from want.

"The missionaries, of whom I told you, were still on the island when I arrived there; but although they pitied, and were disposed to be kind to me, I could not bear to complain to them, or to make my story a subject for missionary reports and speeches. You see I had a little pride still, but I do not know whether it would not have yielded to the dreadful need for a friend of my own race, if events had not brought me one whom you know, Mr. Strafford.

"Although the island was large enough to have maintained the whole Indian population by farming, it remained, when I came there, entirely uncultivated, and hunting and fishing were still the only means the people had of supporting themselves. The consequence was, that at times they suffered greatly from scarcity of provisions, and this naturally brought disease. The year after my marriage was a bad one, and the women and children especially felt the want of their usual supplies. A great many of them left the island, and tried to find food by begging, or by selling mats, and baskets, at the nearest settlements. The misery of these poor creatures attracted attention, and people began to wonder why, since they were Christians, and had received some degree of teaching, they were still so ignorant of the means of living. The answer was easy. The missionaries who had taught them were as ignorant as themselves of these things; and, indeed, had not thought it necessary to civilize while they Christianized them. Mr. Strafford had then lately arrived in the country. He held different views to those of the missionaries, and, pitying the forlorn condition of the islanders, he offered to come and help them. Almost the first sensation of gladness I remember feeling, from the day I left my father's house, was when I heard that a clergyman of our own Church was to be settled among my poor neighbours."

CHAPTER X.

"Mr. Strafford had been some little time on the island before he saw me.

I had seen him, however, and I dare say you will understand how the expression of his face, the honest, manly, kindly look you have often admired, filled me with indescribable consolation, for I felt that there would be near me, in future, a countryman on whose counsel and help I could rely, if I should be driven to extremity. I waited without any impatience for the visit which he was sure to pay me. Mary, my best friend, had lately married a young Indian, who had spent much of his life among Europeans, and who was now employed by Mr. Strafford to teach him the Ojibway language, and, in the meantime, to act as interpreter for him. Through Mary and her husband, Henry Wanita, I knew he would hear of me and be sure to seek me out. I was right; he came one day when I was, as usual, alone, and before he left I had told him as much of my story as I could tell to any one, except to you. I expected that he would pity me, and that his pity would have a little contempt mixed with it, and I had made up my mind to endure the bitterness of this, for the sake of establishing that claim upon his advice and aid, which I was certain, after the first shock of such a confession, my wretchedness would give me. But he had not one word of reproof to say; either he had heard, or he guessed that my fault had brought its full measure of punishment, and that what I needed was rather consolation than reproach.

He went away and left me, as he often left me afterwards, with courage and patience renewed for the hard struggle of my life.

"My husband had lately been more than ever away; and though in his absence I had often the greatest difficulty to obtain food, or any kind of necessaries, yet I was thankful for the peace in which I could then live. I learned to embroider in the Indian fashion, and was able to repay the kindness I received from Mary, and some of the other squaws, by drawing patterns for them, and by teaching them how to make more comfortable clothes for themselves and their children. After Mr.

Strafford had been a little while on the island, he proposed to establish a school for this kind of work, and I became the mistress. The women and girls came to me more readily than they would have done to a stranger, and I soon had a good number of pupils.

"Several months passed, after Mr. Strafford's coming, without anything new occurring. Then Christian returned from the States, where he had been for a longer time than usual. He came late at night, and so intoxicated that I was obliged to go myself and fasten the canoe, which would have floated away before morning. When I followed him into the house he was already fast asleep, and it was not till the next day that I knew what had brought him home. Then he told me. What I understood--for he said as little as possible on the subject--was, that he had been for the last few weeks in the company of a party of gamblers, to whom he had lost everything he possessed, and, finally, that having found means of raising money upon the security of the whole fortune to which I was entitled, he had lost that too, and consequently we remained penniless. This much I heard with indifference; the money he received had never benefited me, and had only given him the means for a life you cannot imagine, and which I could not, if I would, describe to you; but when he ended by telling me that, as all my relations were rich, I must contrive to get fresh supplies from some of them, my patience gave way altogether. Even my fear of him yielded to my anger; for the first time since our arrival in Canada I spoke to him with all the bitterness I felt. A horrible scene followed--he threatened to kill me, and I believe would have done it but for the hope of yet obtaining money by my means. I tried to escape, but could not; and, at last, when he was tired of torturing me, he took off a long red sash which he wore, and tied me to the bed. There, Lucia, for four-and-twenty hours he kept me a prisoner, standing in a constrained attitude, without rest or food.

How I endured so long without fainting, I do not know; fear of something worse must have given me unnatural strength, for he never left the house, but spent the early part of the day in searching all my cupboards and boxes for money or anything worth money, and the later part in drinking. Mr. Strafford had gone over to the Canadian shore, or probably, missing me from the school, he would have come in search of me. Mary did come, but at the sight of my husband, she went away without knowing anything of me. All night he sat drinking, for he had brought a quantity of whisky home some time before, and towards morning he lay down for a while, but so that I could not move without disturbing him.

After two or three hours' sleep he got up and went away, leaving me still tied, and telling me I had better think of what he had said, and make up my mind to get money in some way. When I heard the sound of his paddle, and knew that he was really gone, the force that had sustained me gave way; I fainted, and in falling, the sash happily broke, though not until one of my wrists was badly sprained. The pain of my wrist brought me back to consciousness. As soon as I could, I wrapped myself in a shawl and went to Mary's cottage, to ask her to bandage it for me, and to take my excuses to the school, where I was quite unable to go that day.

"No one, not even Mr. Strafford, knew the cause of my sprained wrist, or the conduct of my husband that day and night, but it was impossible that when such scenes were repeated again and again, they should not become known. And they were repeated so often and so dreadfully, that only the feeling that I endured the just penalty of my own conduct, enabled me to bear the perpetual suffering. At last, even Christian saw that I could not live long if I had not some respite. Perhaps he had a little pity for me; perhaps he only thought still of gain. At any rate, he became less cruel, and my health returned. Again something like a calm came over my life, and I began to feel hopeful once more. The next spring you, Lucia, my light and comfort, were born, and from that time I had double cause both for hope and fear. The birth of a daughter, however, is no cause of joy to an Indian father; if you had been a boy you would have been (or so I fancy) far less consolation to me, but to Christian you would have been more welcome. He was with me when you were born, but the very next day he left the island for three or four weeks, and from the time of his next return all my former sufferings recommenced. Often in terror for your life, I carried you to Mary Wanita and implored her to keep you until your father was gone; and even in his absence I scarcely dared to fall asleep with you in my arms, lest he should come in unexpectedly and snatch you from me.

"When you were about a year old Mr. Strafford married. His wife, who had already heard of me before her marriage, became the dearest of friends to me; with her I could always leave you in safety, and with her I began to feel again the solace of female society and sympathy. She is dead, as you know, long ago, and her little daughter died at the same time, of a fever which broke out on the island two or three years after we left it.

"Two years passed after your birth, and things had gone on in much the same way. My husband never ceased to urge me to try to obtain money from England, and in the meantime he continually took from me the little I could earn by my work, for which Mrs. Strafford found me a sale in different towns of the province.

"Do not misjudge me, Lucia. I tell you these things only to justify what I did later, and my long concealment even from you of the truth of my history.

"But when you were about two years old your father left the island, and did not return. The longest stay he had ever made before was a month, and when two passed, and I neither saw nor heard of him, I began to feel uneasy. Mr. Strafford made many inquiries for me, but we only heard of his having been seen shortly after he left home, and quite failed in learning where he had gone. Time went on, and, after the first anxious and troubled feelings passed off, I allowed myself to enjoy the undisturbed quiet, and to be happy as any other mother might be with her child. I had a whole year of such peace; you grew hardy and merry, and were the pet and plaything of the whole village, learning to talk the strangest mixed language, and showing at that time none of the terror of Indians which I have seen in you since then.

"But at the end of a year our respite ended. One day when I had been at the school, and you with me, I was surprised on my return home to see the door of the house open, and some men sitting at my table. I hurried on, and walked into the room before they were aware of my coming. There were four of them, two Indians and two who were either white or of mixed race; but it was only by his voice, and that after a moment's pause, that I could recognize my husband. My husband! never till then had I known the full horror that word could convey. Remember that long ago I had been charmed, had fallen in love, as girls say, with one who seemed to represent the very perfection and ideal of manly beauty; that this beauty and stateliness of outward form had been so great that I took it for the truthful expression of such a nature as I thought most heroic--remember this, and then think of what I saw after this year of absence. A bloated, degraded, horrible creature--not even a man, but a brute, raving half deliriously, and still drinking, while his companions, little more sober than himself, made him the subject of their jests and jeers. I held my little innocent child in my arms while I saw this, and for the first time, and for her sake, I felt a bitter hatred rise up in my heart against her father."

A strong shudder crept over Mrs. Costello; she covered her face with her hands for a moment, while Lucia drew more closely to her side. Presently she went on. "A cry from you, my child, drew the men's attention to us.

'Here's your squaw,' one of them said to Christian, who tried to get up, but could not. I saw that it was useless to speak to him, and turned to leave the house, intending to ask shelter from Mrs. Strafford or Mary, but before I could pass the door one of the strangers shut and bolted it, while another seized and held me fast. They made me sit down at the table; they tried to drag you out of my arms, and failing in that, to make you swallow some of the whisky they were drinking. I defended you as well as I could. In my terror and despair I watched for the time when they should all become as helpless as the miserable creature who had brought them there; but it was long to wait. Lucia, those hours when I saw myself and you at the mercy of these wretches were like years of agony. They saw my fear, however I might try to disguise it, and delighted in the torment I suffered. They tried again and again to take you from me; they threatened us both with every imaginable horror; till I thought night would have quite closed in before their drinking would end in complete intoxication. At length, at length, it did. One had fallen asleep; the other two were quarrelling feebly, when I ventured to move. They tried to get up, to stop me; but I drew the bolt, and fled into the darkness where I knew they could not follow.

"I reached Mr. Strafford's door, and we were received with all kindness; but the fright, the sudden exposure to cold night air, after being for so many hours shut up in a stifling room, and perhaps, added to all a few drops of spirit which had been forced into your mouth, brought on you a sudden, and to me most terrible, illness. It was your first; I had never seen you suffer, and I thought you would die; that God would take you from me as the last and crowning punishment for my disobedience. In the great anguish of this idea, I wrote to my father--wrote by your bedside while you slept, and confessing all my folly, implored his forgiveness, as if that would preserve my child's life. You recovered, and in my joy I almost forgot that the letter had been written. While you lay ill, the Straffords concealed from me that my husband had been to the house demanding my return home; but when you were almost well, they told me not only this, but that he had declared in the village that he would punish us both for our flight. It was then that Mr. Strafford recommended me to think seriously of a final escape.

"'It is evident,' he said, 'that you neither can, nor ought, to put yourself and your child again into his power--while you remain on the island it must be here; but I strongly advise you to return to England, or conceal yourself from him in some way.'

"I gratefully accepted his invitation to remain for a little while at his house--the rest of his plan could not be hastily decided upon; and while I deliberated, a letter arrived from England. Mr. Strafford, on hearing of the scene which ended in your illness, had carried out an idea which, he afterwards told me, he had long entertained, and written to my cousin George. The letter which now arrived was in answer to this, though it contained an enclosure for me. My appeal to my father had been made just in time; it reached him on his deathbed, and he forgave me. He did more than that; he altered, at the very last, a will made many years before, and left me an equal sum to that I had before inherited from my mother, but with the condition that I should never return to England.

You understand now why, loving the dear old country as I still do, I have always told you I should never see it again--to do so would be to forfeit all our living, and more even than that, it would be to disobey my father's last command. My cousin's note was as kind and brotherly as if he had never had the least reason to complain of me. He told me that he had married some years before a good woman who, I have since thought, might have been his first choice if regard for my father's wishes had not influenced him. At any rate, they were and, I hope, still are happy together, filling my father and mother's places in the old home.

"These letters made my way clearer. It was settled that I should take advantage of Christian's absence (for he had again left the island) to remove with you to the most secure hiding-place we could find, and as a large town always offers the best means of concealment, we decided upon Montreal. So after a residence of six years on the island, I left it at last, carrying you with me and calling myself a widow. It was then that I took the name of Costello. It was my mother's family name, and is really, as you have always supposed, Spanish--my great-grandfather having been a Spaniard. I gave you the name at your baptism, so that it is really yours, though not mine.

"For six months we remained in Montreal; but I had been so long used to the silence and free air of the island that my health failed in the noisy town. I was seized with a terror of dying, and leaving you unprotected, and therefore determined to try whether I could not remain concealed equally well in the country. A chance made me think of this neighbourhood, which, though rather too near my old home, was then very retired, and not inhabited at all by Indians. I came up, found this place for sale and bought it. There was only a very rough log-house upon the ground, but I went into that until this cottage was ready, and here you can remember almost all that has happened."

Lucia raised her head as her mother finished speaking.

"But--my father!" she said hesitatingly.

"I forgot." Mrs. Costello resumed. "Mr. Strafford kept me informed of his movements for some time. He came back shortly after we had left the island, and on finding us gone, he tried all means to discover where we were. He actually traced us to Montreal, but there lost the clue, and came back disappointed. For some years he continued to live much as he had done ever since his return from England, frequently staying two or three weeks on the island, and never forgetting to make some effort to trace us. The perpetual terror I suffered during those years never subsided. I feared to go outside of my own garden lest he should meet and recognize me. At last Mr. Strafford sent me word that he had gone to the Hudson's Bay Territory.

"After that I began to feel that I was free, and from the time you were nine until you were sixteen I had little immediate anxiety; then, as I saw you growing up, I knew that the time when you must know your own birth and my history drew very near, and the idea weighed on me constantly. Other anxieties came too, and finally, worst of all, news that Christian had returned."

"And now," Lucia asked, "do you know where he is?"

"No. But I have been warned that he is seeking for us. They say that we have more reason than ever to fear him, and that he is looking for us in this part of the province."

Mrs. Costello's voice sunk almost to a whisper. She seemed to fancy that the man she had so long escaped might be close at hand, and Lucia caught the infection of her terror. They remained silent a minute, listening fearfully to the light rustling of the leaves outside, as the breeze stirred them.

"Mother," Lucia said at last, "how soon can we leave here?"

"I have thought much of that," Mrs. Costello answered, "but we have ties here too strong to be broken suddenly; and, indeed, a hasty removal might but draw upon us the very notice we wish to avoid."

"We must go soon though, as soon as possible. Oh! mamma, I could not bear to stay here now."

It was a cry of impatience--of acute pain--the child had suddenly turned back from her mother's story to her own trial and loss. Love, happiness, two hours ago clasped to her heart, and now torn from her pitilessly; for a moment she was all rebellion at the thought--she, at least, had not sinned, why should she suffer? Yet in her heart she knew that she must; she saw the one path clear before her, and felt that the time for acting was now; the time for grieving must come after. She rose, and walked up and down the room, gathering her strength and courage as she could.

At last she stopped in front of her mother's chair. Her face was pale, but so steady and composed that its girlishness seemed gone--she looked, what she would be from that time, a woman able to endure, and resolute to act.