coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's
eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The
duenna saw the little embryo flirtation, and became very much horrified,
and preached the girl a long sermon, and set a close watch upon her
actions.

There was no wise, loving guidance of a young girl's life barque from
the reefs of adventure. It was homily and force. The result was, that
the girl escaped from school before six weeks passed, and married her
admirer.

He was fifteen years her senior, a reckless man of the world, even older
in experience than in years. He proved a very bad husband, but his young
wife remained with him until his own father urged her to leave him. She
was quietly divorced, and has lived abroad almost ever since, and holds
an excellent position in the French capital, as well as in other
European centres, and she is most exemplary in her life. Mr. Walton is
now an inmate of a sanitarium, a victim of paresis.

I can imagine no one so well fitted to exert the wisest influence upon
Millie's life as Mrs. Walton.

There is a woman who has run the whole gamut of girlish folly, and who
knows all the phases of temptation. She knows what it is to possess
physical attractions, and to be flattered by the admiration of men, and
she has passed through the dark waters of disillusion and sorrow. She
would be the one to help Millie out of dangerous places by sympathy and
understanding, instead of using sermons and keys.

She would mould her young, wax-like character by the warmth of love,
instead of freezing it by austere axioms.

Miss Brown would make an indiscreet young girl feel hopelessly vulgar
and immodest; Mrs. Walton that she understood all about her foolish
pranks, and was able to lead her in the better paths.

Miss Brown prides herself upon never having lost her head with any man.

Mrs. Walton is like some other women I have known, who have made
mistakes of judgment. She lost her head, but in the losing and the
sorrow that ensued she found a heart for all humanity.

There are women in this world whose cold-white chastity freezes the poor
wayfarer who tries to find in their vicinity rest and comfort and
courage.

Other women cast a cooling shadow, in which the sun-scorched pilgrim
finds peace--the shadow of a past error, from which spring fragrant
ferns and sweet grasses, where tired and bleeding feet may softly tread.

Mrs. Walton's life casts the shadow of divorce on