unfortunate as this prisoner; yet her parents must not be implicated
by such transaction. Therefore they must be kept in ignorance, that,
if blame fell anywhere, it might not fall on them. So she satisfied
her conscience;--love will not calculate coldly. But it was less
easy to satisfy her heart.

She had lived but sixteen years; she looked to her youth as to a
protector, while it rebuked her. She leaned upon it, while daily she
took to herself the part of womanhood, its duties and its dignity.
He had called her a child; she called herself a child. She was
careful to let this estimate of herself appear in that letter; and
in what she undertook she was entirely successful; Madeline
Desperiers would be sure to read it as the letter of a child.

When all was done Elizabeth repeated to Manuel the substance of this
letter. He praised it. Jealous scrutiny would find it difficult to
lay its finger on a passage, and condemn the writer for evading the
law concerning the prisoner. When she signed and sealed the letter,
addressed it, and carried it away with her to mail, he was satisfied;
his praise was sweet to the girl who had earned it.

No sooner was this work off her hands than another engaged her. With
a purpose prompted may-be by her angel, certainly by no human word,
and unshared by any human intelligence, Elizabeth began to make a
sketch of the island as seen from Manuel's prison-window. She made
the sketch from memory, correcting it by observation when occasion
called her to the prisoner's room.

At length she brought the sheet of paper, on which this sketch was
drawn, to Manuel, and laid it before him. She did this without any