lip mechanically with the pert smile of her vocation, but the smile was
frozen ere it reached her lips, and the coarse words she would have
spoken died into a murmur and a sob. She sank down again upon the
cushion, and bent her face low down upon her hands.

"Oh, Mary! is it you! is it you! I pray heaven your mother be in her
grave!"

She rose and escaped quickly from the room; but he followed her and
checked her at the stairway.

"Let me speak with you, Mary. No, not here; lead me to your room."

He followed her up-stairs, and closing the door, sat beside her as she
leaned upon the bed and buried her face in the pillow.

It was the child of his old nurse. Upon the hill-sides of his native
State they had played together when children, and now she lay there
before him, with scarce enough of woman's nature left to weep for her
own misery.

"Mary, how is this? Look up, child," he said, taking her hand kindly. "I
had rather see you thus, bent low with sorrow, than bold and hard in
guilt. But yet look up and speak to me. I will be your friend, you know.
Tell me, why are you thus?"

"Oh, Mr. Wayne, do not scold me, please don't. I was thinking of home
and mother when you came and put your hand on my head. Mother's dead."

"Well for her, poor woman. But how came you thus?"