upon the memory of Mrs. Marston, until, gradually, deep slumber again
overcame her senses, and the incident and all its attendant circumstances
faded into oblivion.

It was past eight o'clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning. The sun
was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows; and as the remembrance
of Marston's visit to her chamber, and the unwonted manifestations of
tenderness and compunction which accompanied it, returned, she felt
something like hope and happiness, to which she had long been a stranger,
flutter her heart. The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was,
however, interrupted. The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached
her ear, and, pushing back the bed-curtains, and leaning forward to look,
she saw her maid, Willett, sitting with her back to the wall, crying
bitterly, and striving, as it seemed, to stifle her sobs with her apron,
which was wrapped about her face.

"Willet, Willett, is it you who are sobbing? What is the matter with you,
child?" said Mrs. Marston, anxiously.

The girl checked herself, dried her eyes hastily, and walking briskly to
a little distance, as if engaged in arranging the chamber, she said, with
an affectation of carelessness--

"Oh, ma'am, it is nothing; nothing at all, indeed, ma'am."

Mrs. Marston remained silent for a time, while all her vague
apprehensions returned. Meantime the girl continued to shove the chairs
hither and thither, and to arrange and disarrange everything in the room
with a fidgety industry, intended to cover her agitation. A few minutes,
however, served to weary her of this, for she abruptly stopped, stood by