ch streamed through the window-panes,
suited better the mood of Nellie, who leaning upon the arm of the
sofa, looked listlessly out upon the deep beauty of the night. Upon
a little stool at her feet sat Mabel, her head resting on Nellie's
lap, and her hand searching in vain for another, which involuntarily
moved farther and farther away, as hers advanced.

At length she spoke: "Nellie, dear Nellie--there is something I want
so much to tell you--if you will hear it, and not think me foolish."

With a strong effort, the hand which had crept away under the
sofa-cushion, came back from its hiding-place, and rested upon
Mabel's brow, while Nellie's voice answered, softly and slow, "What
is it, Mabel? I will hear you."

Briefly, then, Mabel told the story of her short life, beginning at
the time when a frowning nurse tore her away from her dead mother,
chiding her for her tears, and threatening her with punishment if she
did not desist. "Since then," said she, "I have been so lonely--how
lonely, none but a friendless orphan can know. No one has ever loved
me, or if for a time they seemed to, they soon grew weary of me, and
left me ten times more wretched than before. I never once dreamed
that--that Mr. Livingstone could care aught for one so ugly as I know
I am. I thought him better suited for you, Nellie. (How cold your
hand is, but don't take it away, for it cools my forehead.")

The icy hand was not withdrawn, and Mabel continued: "Yes, I think
him better suited to you, and when his mother told me that he loved
me, and that he would, undoubtedly, one day make me his wife, it was
almost too much for me to believe, but it makes me so happy--oh, so
happy."

"And he--he, too, told you that he loved you?" said Nellie, very low,
holding her breath for the answer.

"Oh, no--_he_ never told me in _words_. 'Twas his mother that told
me--he only _acted_!"

"And what did he do?" asked Nellie, smiling in spite of herself, at
the simplicity of Mabel, who, without any intention of exaggerating,
proceeded to tell what John Jr. had said and done, magnifying every
attention, until Nellie, blinded as she was by what his mother had
said, was convinced that, at all events, he was not true to herself.
To be sure, he had never told her he loved her in words; but in
actions he had said it many a time, and if he could do the same with
Mabel, he must be false either to one or the other. Always frank and
open-hearted herself, Nell