her escort or come to the house, and so she told him. She could not
tell why she answered him just as she did, but she was surprised, and
not quite herself, and she might have said it differently, and need
not have said so much, and he certainly must know that she did not
mean it all. Surely it was most his fault; if he really had such
feelings, why should he tell her, and tell her as he did? It was
dreadful, and she would never be happy again; and she laid her head in
her mother's lap, in her great anguish.

When her burst of grief had subsided, and she was calm, her mother
asked several questions, and learned all that was said, and was
much excited at Julia's account of the encounter with the beast and
Barton's intrepidity. She seemed to feel that they had both escaped a
great danger, through his courage.

"My dear child," she said, "I don't know what to think of these
strange and trying events, mixed up as they are. There is one very,
very unfortunate thing about it."

"That I met Barton? Oh, mother!"

"No, no; not that. It was unfortunate that you came the way you did,
or unfortunate that you went, perhaps; but it is not that. It was most
providential that Barton was with you, but so unfortunate that he said
to you what he did."

"Is it a misfortune to be loved, mother?"

"Let us not talk of this to-night, my darling," stooping and kissing
her still pale cheek. "God only knows of these things. It may not be a