r was her chastened heart joyful and grateful. "Mabel must
wait," she said, "until the prospect of advancement became a reality;
for it would be an ill return of disinterested love for a penniless
orphan to become a burden instead of a blessing. Mabel would grow more
worthy every day; they were doing well; ay, he might look round the
white-washed walls and smile, but they _were_ prosperous, healthful,
happy, and respected; and if she could only live to see the odium cast
upon her father's memory removed, she would not exchange her present
poverty for her past pride." She frequently afterwards thought of the
clergyman's rejoinder--"That riches, like mercy, were as blessed to
the giver as to the receiver, and that they only created evil when
hoarded, or bestowed by a heedless hand."

They certainly were a happy group in that lowly cottage room that
evening. Mabel's proud bearing had given place, as if by magic, to a
blushing shyness; which she tried to shield from observation by every
possible attempt at ease. She talked to Mr. Goulding, and found a
thousand uses for the old furniture she had once so heartily despised.
"She would sit in the great high chair at the end of that table,
with her feet on the stool, and the china vase in the midst, filled
with humble cottage flowers--meadow-sweet and wild roses, and
sweet-williams, sea-pinks, woodbine, and wild convolvulus! Did Mr.
Goulding like cottage flowers best?" No; the clergyman said he did
not, but he thought Mr. Lycight did, and the young man assured her
that it was so; and then gazed on the only love his heart, his deep,
unworn, earnest heart, had throbbed to, with an admiration which
is always accompanied by fear, lest something should prevent the
realization of the one great earthly hope. And Mabel was more fitful
than her aunt had ever seen her. Fearful lest her secret, as she
thought it, should be discovered, she made as many turns and windings
as a hare; and yet, unskilled in disguising her feelings, after
spending many words in arranging and re-arranging, she suddenly wished
that the spinnet could be opened, "If," she exclaimed, "_that_ could
be opened, I should be able to teach Mary Godwin music; and her mother
seemed to wish it so much: surely we can open the instrument?"

"It has not been opened for years," replied Miss Bond; "and I
remember, once before, Mabel wished it opened, and I refused, lest
forcing the lock might harm the marquetre, of which my poor