t
subdue my courage, nor make me afraid to meet her eye. Here, Gretchen,
help me with this great chest of drawers. We must get rid of it out of
this, wherever it goes." It was a long and weary task, and tried
their strength to the last limit; and Julia threw herself into a
deep-cushioned chair when it was over, and sighed heavily. "Have you
a sweetheart, Gretchen?" she asked, just to lead the girl to talk, and
relieve the oppression that she felt would steal over her. Yes, Gretchen
had a sweetheart, and he was a fisherman, and he had a fourth share in a
"bragotza;" and when he had saved enough to buy out two of his comrades
he was to marry her; and Gretchen was very fond, and very hopeful, and
very proud of her lover, and altogether took a very pleasant view of
life, though it was all of it in expectancy. Then Gretchen asked if the
signorina had not a sweetheart, and Julia, after a pause,--and it was a
pause in which her color came and went,--said, "No!" And Gretchen drew
nigh, and stared at her with her great hazel eyes, and read in her now
pale face that the "No" she had uttered had its own deep meaning; for
Gretchen, though a mere peasant, humble and illiterate, was a woman, and
had a woman's sensibility under all that outward ruggedness.

"Why do you look at me so, Gretchen?" asked Julia.

"Ah, signorina," sighed she, "I am sorry--I am very sorry! It is a sad
thing not to be loved."

"So it is, Gretty; but every day is not as nice and balmy and fresh
as this, and yet we live on, and, taking one with the other, find
life pretty enjoyable, after all!" The casuistry of her speech made no
convert. How could it?--it had not any weight with herself.

The girl shook her head mournfully, and gazed at her with sad eyes, but
not speaking a word. "I thought, signorina," said she, at last, "that
the handsome prince--"

"Go to your dinner, Gretchen. You are late already," said Julia,
sharply; and the girl withdrew, abashed and downcast. When thus alone,
Julia sat still, wearied by her late exertions. She leaned her head on
the arm of the chair, and fell fast asleep. The soft summer wind that
came tempered through the window-blinds played with her hair and fanned
her to heavy slumber--at first, dreamless slumber, the price of actual
fatigue.

Jack Bramleigh, who had been wandering about alone, doing his best
to think over himself and his future, but not making any remarkable
progress in the act, had at length turned into t