olved in her mind, her eye was unfortunately attracted by a
beautiful piece of silk, belonging to her employer. Could she not take
it, without being seen, and pay for it secretly, when she had earned
money enough? The temptation conquered her in a moment of weakness. She
concealed the silk, and conveyed it to her lodgings. It was the first
thing she had ever stolen, and her remorse was painful. She would have
carried it back, but she dreaded discovery. She was not sure that her
repentance would be met in a spirit of forgiveness.

On the eventful Fourth of July, she came out in her new dress. Lord
Henry complimented her upon her elegant appearance, but she was not
happy. On their way to the gardens, he talked to her in a manner which
she did not comprehend. Perceiving this, he spoke more explicitly. The
guileless young creature stopped, looked in his face with mournful
reproach, and burst into tears. The nobleman took her hand kindly, and
said, "My dear, are you an innocent girl?"

"I am, I am," she replied, with convulsive sobs. "Oh, what have I ever
done, or said, that you should ask me such a question?"

The evident sincerity of her words stirred the deep fountains of his
better nature. "If you are innocent," said he, "God forbid that I should
make you otherwise. But you accepted my invitations and presents so
readily, that I supposed you understood me."

"What _could_ I understand," said she, "except that you intended to make
me your wife?"

Though reared amid the proudest distinctions of rank, he felt no
inclination to smile. He blushed and was silent. The heartless
conventionalities of the world stood rebuked in the presence of
affectionate simplicity. He conveyed her to her humble home, and bade
her farewell, with a thankful consciousness that he had done no
irretrievable injury to her future prospects. The remembrance of her
would soon be to him as the recollection of last year's butterflies.
With her, the wound was deep. In the solitude of her chamber she wept in
bitterness of heart over her ruined air-castles. And that dress, which
she had stolen to make an appearance befitting his bride! Oh, what if
she should be discovered? And would not the heart of her poor widowed
mother break, if she should ever know that her child was a thief?

Alas, her wretched forebodings proved too true. The silk was traced to
her; she was arrested on her way to the store and dragged to prison.
There she refused all nourishment