selected from the wild, and suggested the trellised walk, already covered
with hardy vine. She was their confidant in every plan of improvement,
their comforter in every anxious doubt, their nurse in every passing
ailment, her very smile a refreshment in the weariness of daily toil.
"How all that is best in womanhood," wrote the old man, with the
enthusiasm which no time had reft from his hearty, healthful genius,--"how
all that is best in womanhood is here opening fast into flower from the
bud of the infant's soul! The atmosphere seems to suit it,--the
child-woman in the child-world!"

I heard Lilian sigh; I looked towards her furtively; tears stood in her
softened eyes; her lip was quivering. Presently, she began to rub her
right hand over the left--over the wedding-ring--at first slowly; then
with quicker movement.

"It is not here," she said impatiently; "it is not here!"

"What is not here?" asked Mrs. Ashleigh, hanging over her.

Lilian leaned back her head on her mother's bosom, and answered faintly,--

"The stain! Some one said there was a stain on this hand. I do not see
it, do you?"

"There is no stain, never was," said I; "the hand is white as your own
innocence, or the lily from which you take your name."

"Hush! you do not know my name. I will whisper it. Soft!--my name is
Nightshade! Do you want to know where the lily is now, brother? I will
tell you. There, in that letter. You call her Amy,--she is the lily;