hastily, and Mildred told her, with many tears, all that had been
said. Even her mother's gentle nature could not prevent harsh
condemnation of the young man.

"So he could do nothing better than get up this little melodrama,
and then hasten back to his elegant home," she said, with a darkening
frown.

Mildred shook her head and said, musingly, "I understand him better
than you do, mamma, and I pity him from the depths of my heart."

"I think it's all plain enough," said Mrs. Jocelyn, in a tone that
was hard and unnatural in her. "His rich parents tell him that he
must not think of marrying a poor girl, and he is the most dutiful
of sons."

"You did not hear his words, mamma--you did not see him. Oh, if he
should die! He looked like death itself," and she gave way to such
an agony of grief that her mother was alarmed on her behalf, and
wept, entreated, and soothed by turns until at last the poor child
crept away with throbbing temples to a long night of pain and
sleeplessness. The wound was one that she must hide in her own
heart; her pallor and languor for several days proved how deep it
had been.

But the truth that he loved her--the belief that he could never give
to another what he had given to her--had a secret and sustaining
power. Hope is a hardy plant in the hearts of the young. Though the
future was dark, it still had its possibilities of good. Womanlike,
she thought more of his trouble than of her own, and that which most