cried Leam, fronting her stepmother.

"Silence, Leam!" cried Mr. Dundas angrily.

His wife laid her taper fingers tenderly on his. "No, no, dear
husband: let her speak," she pleaded, her voice and manner admirably
effective. "It is far better for her to say what she feels than to
brood over it in silence. I can wait till she comes to me of her own
accord and says, 'Mamma, I love you: forgive me the past'"

"You are an angel," said Mr. Dundas, pressing her hand to his lips,
his eyes moist and tender.

"I always said it," the rector added huskily--"the most noble-natured
woman of my acquaintance."

"I never will come to you and say, 'Mamma, I love you,' and ask you to
forgive me for being true to my own mamma," said Learn. "I am mamma's
daughter, no other person's."

Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she said.

How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so much
unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child,
thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly
held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the
Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in
the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy
as the explanation of abnormal qualities.