ad of the
family, but now she leaned helplessly upon her mother and whispered,
"It's all over between Charley and me."

XXV.

MRS. FRANKLAND'S REPENTANCE.

For some time after Phillida had left Mrs. Frankland resting on the
lounge that lady had felt an additional exaltation in contemplating this
new and admirable instance of faith and devotion--an instance that
seemed to owe much to the influence of her own teachings. Her mind had
toyed with it as a brilliant having many facets. She had unconsciously
reduced it to words; she could only get the virtue out of anything when
she had phrased it. Phillida she had abstracted into a "young woman of a
distinguished family," "beautiful as the day," "who had all the
advantages of high associations," and "who might have filled to the brim
the cup of social enjoyment." The lover, whose name and circumstances
she did not know, she yet set up in her mind as "an accomplished young
man of splendid gifts and large worldly expectations." It would have
been a serious delinquency in him had he failed to answer to this
personal description, for how else could this glorious instance be
rounded into completeness? Incapable of intentional misrepresentation,
Mrs. Frankland could never help believing that the undisclosed portion
of any narrative conformed to the exigencies of artistic symmetry and
picturesque effect. She set the story of Phillida's sacrifice before her
now in one and now in another light, and found in contemplating it much
exhilaration--spiritual joy and gratitude in her phraseology. How
charmingly it would fit into an address!

But as the hours wore on the excitement of her oratorical effort
subsided and a natural physical reaction began. Her pulses, which had
been beating so strenuously as to keep her brain in a state of
combustion, were now correspondingly below their normal fullness and
rapidity, and the exhausted nerves demanded repose. It was at such times
as these that Mrs. Frankland's constitutional buoyancy of spirit sank
down on an ebb tide; it was at such times that her usually sunny temper
chafed under the irritations of domestic affairs. On this evening, when
the period of depression set in, Mrs. Frankland's view of Phillida's
case suffered a change. She no longer saw it through the iridescent haze
of excited fancy. She began to doubt whether it was best that Phillida
should break with her lover for the mere sake of being a shining
example. In this mood