her. For some hours, terrible anxiety was felt; but, at last, nature,
exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the
expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind,
but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of
her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in. It was this thought
which stung her so. What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of
trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me.
Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time, rose to her
memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of
universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And
Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.

The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and
appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay
freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was
uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie
in her studies, and in music. Her companions she never sought, but they,
partly from uneasy remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked
her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her
continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only
stain upon the history of Mariana.

They talked to her, as girls, having few topics, naturally do, of one
another. And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without
design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a
genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and
jealousy which a wise, true word from a third will often quench forever;
by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds of