ountenance
beautiful, at times, beyond any mere symmetry of features that ever
existed. "I think you love me, Lina."

The young girl did not answer but crept closer to Mrs. Harrington's
bosom. A deep breath came in a tremor from her bosom, as odor shakes the
lily-bell it escapes from.

Thus, for a little time, the two remained in each other's embrace,
blissful and silent. All this time Agnes Barker looked on, with a
dawning sneer upon her lip.

At length, Mabel lifted Lina's face from her bosom, and kissing the
white forehead, bade her sit down and partake of the breakfast that
stood upon a little table at her side. She filled a cup with chocolate
from the small silver kettle, and pressed it upon the young girl.

"My heart is too full--I cannot taste a drop," said Lina.

"Nonsense, child," answered Mabel, and, with a laugh and a bright look,
she hummed--

"Lips, though blooming, must still be fed,
For not even love can live on flowers."

Why did the rosy blood leap into that young face at the word "Love?" Why
did those eyelids droop so bashfully, and the little hand begin to shake
under the snowy cup it would gladly have put down? Lina remembered now
that her secret was still untold, while Mabel, startled by her blushes,
thought of the first words that had marked their interview, and grew
timid as one does, who has suffered and dreads a renewal of pain.

Thus these two persons, loving each other so deeply, shrunk apart, and
were afraid to speak. Poor Lina, with her exquisite intuition, which was
a remarkable gift, drooped bashfully forward, the roses dying on her
cheek beneath the frightened glance which Mabel fixed upon them, and her
eyelids drooping their dark lashes downward, as the leaves of a japonica
cast shadows.

At last Mabel spoke low and huskily, for, like all brave persons, she
only recoiled from pain for the moment. Her heart always rose to meet
its distresses at once, and steadily.

"Tell me, Lina, what is it? You have not heard of my escape, and yet
something disturbed you."

"Yes, mamma!"

"And, what is it?"

Lina struggled a moment, lifted her eyes full of wistful love, and,
dropping her head in Mabel's lap, burst into tears.

"You love some one?" said Mabel, with an instinctive recoil; "is that
it?"

"Yes, yes; oh, forgive us!" burst out from among Lina's sobs.

"Forgive us--and who is the other?" There was a tremble in Mabel's
voice--a premonitory shiver of the limbs. Oh,