s
which should be cured. I am but a poor country girl. But I have seen
enough to know that sensitive and sympathizing natures like your own are
always at the mercy of all around them. The honest and the generous take
no advantage of such; but the selfish and the calculating make a prey of
them! You call this weakness a propensity to please others! Mr.
Brudenell, seek to please the Lord and He will give you strength to
resist the spoilers," said Hannah gravely.

"Too late, too late, at least as far as this life is concerned, for I am
ruined, Hannah!"

"Ruined! Mr. Brudenell!"

"Ruined, Hannah!"

"Good Heaven! I hope you have not endorsed for anyone to the whole
extent of your fortune?"

"Ha, ha, ha! You make me laugh, Hannah! laugh in the very face of ruin,
to think that you should consider loss of fortune a subject of such
eternal regret as I told you my life was loaded with!"

"Oh, Mr. Brudenell, I have known you from childhood! I hope, I hope you
haven't gambled or--"

"Thank Heaven, no, Hannah! I have never gambled, nor drank, nor--in
fact, done anything of the sort!"

"You have not endorsed for anyone, nor gambled, nor drank, nor anything
of that sort, and yet you are ruined!"

"Ruined and wretched, Hannah! I do not exaggerate in saying so!"

"And yet you looked so happy!"

"Grasses grow and flowers bloom above burning volcanoes, Hannah."

"Ah, Mr. Brudenell, what is the nature of this ruin then? Tell me! I am
your sincere friend, and I am older than you; perhaps I could counsel
you."

"It is past counsel, Hannah."

"What is it then?"

"I cannot tell you except this! that the fatality of which I speak is
the only reason why I do not overstep the boundary of conventional rank
and marry Nora! Why I do not marry anybody! Hush! here we are at the
house."

Very stately and beautiful looked the mansion with its walls of white
free-stone and its porticos of white marble, gleaming through its groves
upon the top of the hill.

When they reached it Hannah turned to go around to the servants' door,
but Mr. Brudenell called to her, saying:

"This way! this way, Hannah!" and conducted her up the marble steps to
the visitors' entrance.

He preceded her into the drawing-room, a spacious apartment now in its
simple summer dress of straw matting, linen covers, and lace curtains.

Mrs. Brudenell and the two young ladies, all in white muslin morning
dresses, were gathered around a marble table in the recess