for another in my very presence. Till you asked this, I was
obedient, but I can endure it no longer. They are torturing me to
death!"

"Not to death," said the woman with a strange smile. "Women who love as
you can, and as I did, have no power to die. Tortured you may be to the
verge of the grave, but never into it. Listen, girl, and learn how
charitable and just the world is. When wrong stings the soul into
strength, and every access of vitality brings an additional pang to it,
while you would gladly call on death as a comforter, and court oblivion
as a second heaven, men denounce you for the very strength of endurance
that cannot succumb to trouble. The suffering that does not kill, brings
forth no compassion. Struggle is nothing--endurance is nothing--it is
only those who weakly lie down and perish, that can claim charity of the
world, and then it comes too late. With you and I, Agnes, love is
destiny. What I have been and am, you will be. Our hearts are strong to
endure, sensitive to feel, and quick to resent. Time, alone, divides us
two. Where you are passionate, I am strong. Where you would act, I can
wait. The fire of my own nature breaks out too vividly in your girlish
bosom. It must be suppressed, or quenched altogether. The woman who does
not know how to wait and watch, should die of her first love, and let
school-girls plant daisies on her grave."

Agnes watched the impetuous movement of those features as the woman
spoke, and her own face worked in harmony till no one could have doubted
the sympathy existing between them. Her eyes lost something of their
fire, and took that deep, smouldering light which springs from a
concentration of will. Her arms unconsciously folded themselves on her
bosom, and she answered, with the air of a princess--

"I will learn to wait. Only give me some assurance that Ralph Harrington
shall not marry that girl."

"He never shall marry her--is that enough?"

"But he loves her, and General Harrington has consented, or almost
consented."

"Ha! but the mother?"

"There again you have been mistaken. His mother has not only consented,
but seems rejoiced at the attachment."

"But you told me that she fainted at the very idea."

"And so she did, but in less than twenty-four hours after we met, she
sanctioned the engagement with a joy that surpassed their own."

"What! in your presence?"

"Not exactly," answered Agnes, confessing her meanness without a blush.
"I took advanta