not mincing matters with this pure soul, "to obey
your innocent request, as it was for you to make it. I am a man of the
world and know its _convenances_; you are very young."

"I am sixteen," she murmured.

The abrupt little confession, implying as it did her determination not
to accept any palliation of her conduct which it did not deserve,
touched me strangely. "But very young for that," I exclaimed.

"So aunty says, but no one can ever say it any more," she answered. Then
with a sudden gush, "We shall never see each other again, and you must
forget the motherless girl who has met you in a way for which she must
blush through life. It is no excuse," she pursued hurriedly, "that nurse
thought it was all right. She always approves of everything I do or want
to do, especially if it is anything aunt would be likely to forbid. I
have been spoiled by nurse."

"Was nurse the woman who came for me?" I asked.

She nodded her head with a quick little motion inexpressibly charming.
"Yes, that was nurse. She said she would do it all, I need only write
the note. She meant to give me a pleasure, but she did wrong."

"Yes," thought I, "how wrong you little know or realize." But I only
said, "You must be guided by some one with more knowledge of the world
after this. Not," I made haste to add, struck by the misery in her child
eyes, "that any harm has been done. You could not have appealed to the
friendship of any one who would hold you in greater respect than I.
Whether we meet again or not, my memory of you shall be sweet and
sacred, I promise you that."

But she threw out her hand with a quick gesture. "No, do not remember
me. My only happiness will lie in the thought you have forgotten." And
the last remnants of the child soul vanished in that hurried utterance.
"You must go now," she continued more calmly. "The carriage that brought
you is at the door; I must ask you to take it back to your home."

"But," I exclaimed with a wild and unbearable sense of sudden loss as
she laid her hand on the knob of the door, "are we to part like this?
Will you not at least trust me with your name before I go?"

Her hand dropped from the knob as if it had been hot steel, and she
turned towards me with a slow yearning motion that whatever it betokened
set my heart beating violently. "You do not know it, then?" she
inquired.

"I know nothing but what this little note contains," I replied, drawing
her letter from my pocket.

"Oh, that