"Don't love! Marian, don't love! Be a nun, or drown yourself, but
never love!" said the woman, seizing the young girl's hands, gazing on
her beautiful face, and speaking with intense and painful earnestness.

"Why? Love is life. You had as well tell me not to live as not to love.
Poor sister! I have not known you an hour, yet your sorrows so touch me,
that my heart goes out toward you, and I want to bring you in to our
home, and take care of you," said Marian, gently.

"You do?" asked the wanderer, incredulously.

"Heaven knows I do! I wish to nurse you back to health and calmness."

"Then I would not for the world bring so much evil to you! Yet it is a
lovelier place to die in, with loving faces around."

"But it is a better place to live in! I do not let people die where I
am, unless the Lord has especially called them. I wish to make you well!
Come, drive away all these evil fancies and let me take you into the
cottage," said Marian, taking her hand.

Yielding to the influence of the young girl, poor Fanny suffered herself
to be led a few steps toward the cottage; then, with a piercing shriek,
she suddenly snatched her hand away, crying:

"I should draw the lightning down upon your head! I am doomed! I must
not enter!" And she turned and fled out of the gate.

Marian gazed after her in the deepest compassion, the tears filling her
kind blue eyes.