a little stool at her feet sat Mabel, her head resting on Nellie's
lap, and her hand searching in vain for another, which involuntarily
moved farther and farther away, as hers advanced.

At length she spoke: "Nellie, dear Nellie--there is something I want
so much to tell you--if you will hear it, and not think me foolish."

With a strong effort, the hand which had crept away under the
sofa-cushion, came back from its hiding-place, and rested upon
Mabel's brow, while Nellie's voice answered, softly and slow, "What
is it, Mabel? I will hear you."

Briefly, then, Mabel told the story of her short life, beginning at
the time when a frowning nurse tore her away from her dead mother,
chiding her for her tears, and threatening her with punishment if she
did not desist. "Since then," said she, "I have been so lonely--how
lonely, none but a friendless orphan can know. No one has ever loved
me, or if for a time they seemed to, they soon grew weary of me, and
left me ten times more wretched than before. I never once dreamed
that--that Mr. Livingstone could care aught for one so ugly as I know
I am. I thought him better suited for you, Nellie. (How cold your
hand is, but don't take it away, for it cools my forehead.")

The icy hand was not withdrawn, and Mabel continued: "Yes, I think
him better suited to you, and when his mother told me that he loved
me, and that he would, undoubtedly, one day make me his wife, it was
almost too much for me to believe, but it makes me so happy--oh, so
happy."

"And he--he, too, told you that he loved you?" said Nellie, very low,