fast with us."

The stranger drew away her hand and looked at Marian from head to foot.
But in the midst of her scrutiny, she suddenly sprang, glanced around,
and trembling violently, grasped the gate for support. It was but the
tramping of a colt through the clover that had startled her.

"Do not be frightened; there is nothing that can hurt you; you are safe
here."

"And won't he come?"

"Who, poor girl?"

"The Destroyer!"

"No, poor one, no destroyer comes near us here; see how quiet and
peaceable everything is here!"

The wanderer slowly shook her head with a cunning, bitter smile, that
looked stranger on her fair face than the madness itself had looked,
and:

"So it was there," she said, "but the Destroyer was at hand, and
the thunder of terror and destruction burst upon our quiet--but I
forgot--the fair spirit said I was not to think of that--such thoughts
would invoke the fiend again," added the poor creature, smoothing her
forehead with both hands, and then flinging them wide, as if to dispel
and cast away some painful concentration there.

"But now come in and lie down on the sofa, and rest, while I make you a
cup of coffee," said Marian.

But the same expression of cunning came again into the poor creature's
face, as she said:

"In the house? No, no--no, no! Fanny has learned something. Fanny knows
better than to go under roofs--they are traps to catch rabbits! 'Twas in
the house the Destroyer found us, and we couldn't get out! No, no! a
fair field and no favor and Fanny will outfly the fleetest of them! But
not in a house, not in a house!"

"Well, then I will bring an easy chair out here for you to rest in--you
can sit under the shade, and have a little stand by your side, to eat
your breakfast. Come; come nearer to the house," said Marian, taking
poor Fanny's hand, and leading her up the walk.

They were at the threshold.

"Are you Marian?" poor Fanny asked, abruptly.

"Yes, that is my name."

"Oh, I oughtn't to have come here! I oughtn't to have come here!"

"Why? What is the matter? Come, be calm! Nothing can hurt you or us
here!"

"Don't love! Marian, don't love! Be a nun, or drown yourself, but
never love!" said the woman, seizing the young girl's hands, gazing on
her beautiful face, and speaking with intense and painful earnestness.

"Why? Love is life. You had as well tell me not to live as not to love.
Poor sister! I have not known you an hour, yet your sorrows so touch me,