Nay, more, if she had gone a year or two ago, her health might have
been perfectly restored, which I do not now think will ever be the
case. Before true passion, I am convinced, everything but a sense
of duty moves; true love is warmest when the object is absent. How
Hugh could let Fanny languish in England, while he was throwing
money away at Lisbon, is to me inexplicable, if he had a passion
that did not require the fuel of seeing the object. I much fear he
loves her not for the qualities that render her dear to my heart.
Her tenderness and delicacy are not even conceived of by a man who
would be satisfied with the fondness of one of the general run of
women."

George Blood's departure was due to less pleasant circumstances than
Fanny's. One youthful escapade which had come to light was sufficient to
attach to his name the blame for another, of which he was innocent. Some
of his associates had become seriously compromised; and he, to avoid
being implicated with them, had literally taken flight, and had made
Ireland his place of refuge.

Mary's friends left her just when she most needed them. Unfortunately,
the interval of peace inaugurated by the opening of the school was but
short-lived. Encouraged by the first success of her enterprise, she
rented a larger house, hoping that in it she would do even better. But
this step proved the _Open Sesame_ to an inexhaustible mine of
difficulties. The expense involved by the change was greater than she had
expected, and her means of meeting it smaller. The population at
Newington Green was not numerous or wealthy enough to support a large
first-class day-school, and more pupils were not forthcoming to avail
themselves of the new accommodations provided for them. It was a second
edition of the story of the wedding feast, and again highways and by-ways
were searched in vain. Moreover, her boarders neglected to pay their
bills regularly. Instead of being a source of profit, they were an
additional burden. Her life now became unspeakably sad. Her whole day was
spent in teaching. This in itself would not have been hard. She always
interested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of good done for
others was her most highly prized pleasure. Had the physical fatigue
entailed by her work been her only hardship, she would have borne it
patiently and perhaps gayly. But from morning till night, waking and
sleeping, she was haunte