his nature
was not one which any woman could despise."

Mowbray looked at her strangely. She went on.

"She watched for him day after day--he did not come. She was angry,
and yet troubled; she doubted, and yet tried to justify herself. But
even when he left her, she had conceived a mad scheme--it was to go
and become his companion, and so test him. This she did, assuming
the dress of a man: was it not very indelicate, sir, and could she
have been a lady? I see you start--but do not interrupt me. Let me
go on. The young woman assumed, as I said, an impenetrable
disguise--ingratiated herself with him, and found out all his
secrets. The precious secret which she had thus braved conventionality
to discover, was her own. He loved her--yes! he loved her!" said the
young girl, with a tremor of the voice and a beating heart; "she
could not be mistaken! In moments of unreserve, of confidence, he
told her all, as one friend tells another, and she knew that she was
loved. Then she threw off her disguise--finding him noble and
sincere--and came to him and told him all. She saw that he was
incredulous--could not realize such indelicacies in the woman he
loved; and to make her humiliation complete, she proved to him, by
producing a trifle he had given her, in her disguise--like this,
sir."

And Philippa with a trembling hand drew forth the fringed gloves which
she had procured from Mowbray at the Indian Camp. They fell from her
outstretched hand--it shook.

Mowbray was pale, and his eyes were full of wonder.

"Before leaving him, this audacious young girl was more than once
convinced that the wild and unworthy freak she had undertaken to play,
would lower her in his estimation; but she did not draw back. Her
training had been bad; she enjoyed her liberty. Not until she had
resumed the dress of her sex, did she awake to the consciousness of
the great social transgression she had been guilty of. She then went
to him and told him all, and stopped him when he tried to speak--do
not speak, sir!--and bade him read the words she had written him, as
she left him----"

Mowbray, with an unconscious movement, took from his pocket the letter
left by Hoffland in the post-office, on the morning of the ball.

Philippa took it from his hand and opened it.

"Pardon, Ernest!"

These words were all it contained; and the young girl pointing to
them, dropped the letter and burst into a flood of passionate tears.
Her impulsive nature had fai