e felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands
of those whose hearts she never had doubted.

Yet, the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the kind of
spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of
her death-wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench--she
did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent
composure. She made remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes.

The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were
freed from the restraints of the dining-room, they all ran off, gaily
calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana,
left alone.

She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the
floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as
a child, but of later years, she had outgrown them. School-hours came,
and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no
answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their
penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found
her. For some hours, terrible anxiety was felt; but, at last, nature,
exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the
expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind,
but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of
her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in. It was this thought
which stung her so. What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of
trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me.
Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time, rose to her
memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of
universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And
Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.

The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and
appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay
freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was
uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie
in her studies, and in music. Her companions she never sought, but they,
partly from uneasy remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked
her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her
continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the