e turned purple with mortification,
and pretended not to see me. 'Oh, my countrymen, what a fall was
there!'

"But I am afraid I have shocked your forgiving spirit by my
hardness of heart until you are ready to deplore the depravity of
human nature. My tender one! I am not like you. It comes hard for
Alicia Linden to overlook injustice or forgive her enemies.

"She has always a place in her heart, though, for absent dear ones,
and she often thinks regretfully of one sweet face that used to
smile at her hearthstone.

"Can you not come to me, Clemence?

"Last Sabbath I went to place my offering of flowers at the graves
of our buried dead. The golden glory of the autumn day poured its
heavenly radiance into the far depths of my soul. How lovely looked
the silent resting-place of our dear ones. I thought sadly of you,
and wished you were near me, to mingle your tears with mine.

"As it is, I can only pray that God will guard you with loving
care. Your affectionate ALICIA."

CHAPTER XIII.

It was Thursday afternoon. The "Ladies' Charitable Society of Waveland"
had assembled at the house of its President. The usual business of the
meeting had been dispatched, and the ladies were engaged in the more
congenial employment of retailing the village gossip.

"Have you observed," queried Mrs. Dr. Little, "how wretchedly ill that
young Graystone woman is looking? The doctor was saying, only this
morning, that he thought she was in a decline."

"I suppose its botheration, for one thing," said Mrs. Brier. "She had
ought to have been more circumspect, and then she would have kept her
position. I don't see how she can live without work, any more than
anybody else. We can't be expected, though, to want a person with her
morals contaminating our innocent children. That girl has travelled the
downward road with awful rapidity since she came here. Just to think,
she has been the talk of the town!"

"I have been greatly afraid," said Mrs. Little, "that the Society would
be called upon to help her, if she gets worse again; She seems to be
living, at present, on that widow Hardyng. How are those two to get
through the winter, I should like to know? As for the child, it will
have to be bound out to somebody who will make it work, and then there
will be an end of all these mincing lady airs. One thing I know, i