orry, too; sorry for me, sorry for you; but, Hugh, I will do what
I can to fill her place. I will be the sister you need so much. Don't
look so wretched; it makes me feel badly to see you."

Alice's sympathy was getting the better of her again, and she moved her
stool a little nearer to Hugh, while she involuntarily laid her hand
upon his knee. That decided him; and while his heart throbbed almost to
bursting, he began by saying:

"I am in rather a gloomy mood to-night, I'll admit. I do feel Adah's
leaving us very much; but that is not all. I have wished to talk with
you a long time--wished to tell you how I feel. May I, Alice?--may I
open to you my whole heart, and show you what is there?"

For a moment Alice felt a thrill of fear--a dread of what the opening
of his heart to her might disclose. Then she remembered Golden Hair,
whose name she had never heard him breathe, save as it passed his
delirious lips. It was of her he would talk; he would tell her of that
hidden love whose existence she felt sure was not known at Spring Bank.
Alice would rather not have had this confidence, for the deep love-life
of such as Hugh Worthington seemed to her a sacred thing; but he looked
so white, so careworn, so much as if it would be a relief, that Alice
answered at last:

"Yes, Hugh, you may tell, and I will listen."

He began by telling Alice first of his early boyhood, uncheered by a
single word of sympathy save as it came from dear Aunt Eunice, who alone
understood the wayward boy whom people thought so bad.

"Even she did not quite understand me," he said; "she did not dream of
that hidden recess in my heart which yearned so terribly for a human
love--for something or somebody to check the evil passions so rapidly
gaining the ascendant. Neither did she know how often, in the silent
night, the boy they thought so flinty, so averse to womankind, wept for
the love he had no hope of gaining.

"Then mother and Ad came to Spring Bank, and that opened to me a new
era. In my odd way, I loved my mother so much--so much; but Ad--say,
Alice, is it wicked in me if I can't love Ad?"

"She is your sister," was Alice's reply; and Hugh rejoined:

"Yes--my sister. I'm sorry for it, even, if it's wicked to be sorry. She
gave me back only scorn and bitter words, until my heart closed up
against her, and I harshly judged all others by her--all but one!" and
Hugh's voice grew very low and tender in its tone, while Alice felt that
now he