art of bringing comfort to those who were loving either wisely or too
well. Letters, books, and gifts came from Basil bearing one burden--his
love for Grace. The mother, more jealous of Rose than of Grace, consented
to his marriage with either, and fell into a state of despondency which
made quick and mysterious inroads upon her hitherto excellent health.

When Grace, being called home by the alarming state of her mother's
health, parted with Lydia, she said:

"My duty is clear; I can not be the rival of my mother and Rose. I love
him, but I must give him up." And so she did, although the engagement
between Rose and Basil was broken and never renewed.

Rumor said cruel things about Basil: that he had wasted their beautiful
estate and enriched himself out of their many possessions. Anyhow, they
left their mansion on the hill-top, and it was sold to an institution of
learning, and the grounds were divided and subdivided into lots. The
mother never recovered. After an illness of several years she died
suddenly at some winter resort, with the old name of Basil on her lips
that formed the word and then were forever still. Rose and Grace could
look upon those familiar features and behold the trace of beauty which
time and disease had tenderly spared. But Mary, the third daughter, blind
from her birth, could only feel the face of her beloved and kiss the lips
that could no longer speak her name. Blind! and without a mother, even if
she had been foolish for her years, and had, in an hour of human weakness,
yielded to a love which was useless, out of the question, unnatural. She
was twelve, yet the little blind maid was old enough to know her loss, to
feel her sorrow.

Rose, cold, selfish, unsympathetic, lamenting the loss of a lover whom she