"Dear mademoiselle, allow no such thought to enter your mind. You do me
great wrong, indeed you do," said Mrs. Marston, laying her hand upon the
young lady's, kindly.

There was a silence for a little time, and the elder lady resumed:--"I
remember now what you allude to, dear mademoiselle--the increased
estrangement, the widening separation which severs me from one
unutterably dear to me--the first and bitter disappointment of my life,
which seems to grow more hopelessly incurable day by day."

Mrs. Marston paused, and, after a brief silence, the governess said:--

"I am very superstitious myself, dear madame, and I thought I must have
seemed to you an inauspicious inmate--in short, unlucky--as I have said;
and the thought made me very unhappy--so unhappy, that I was going to
leave you, madame--I may now tell you frankly--going away; but you have
set my doubts at rest, and I am quite happy again."

"Dear mademoiselle," cried the lady, tenderly, and rising, as she spake,
to kiss the cheek of her humble friend; "never--never speak of this
again. God knows I have too few friends on earth, to spare the kindest
and tenderest among them all. No, no. You little think what comfort I
have found in your warm-hearted and ready sympathy, and how dearly I
prize your affection, my poor mademoiselle."

The young Frenchwoman rose, with downcast eyes, and a dimpling, happy
smile; and, as Mrs. Marston drew her affectionately toward her, and
kissed her, she timidly returned the embrace of her kind patroness. For a
moment her graceful arms encircled her, and she whispered to her, "Dear
madame, how happy--how very happy you make me."

Had Ithuriel touched with his spear the beautiful young woman, thus for a
moment, as it seemed, lost in a trance of gratitude and love, would that
angelic form have stood the test unscathed? A spectator, marking the
scene, might have observed a strange gleam in her eyes--a strange
expression in her face--an influence for a moment not angelic, like a
shadow of some passing spirit, cross her visibly, as she leaned over the
gentle lady's neck, and murmured, "Dear madame, how happy--how very happy
you make me." Such a spectator, as he looked at that gentle lady, might
have seen, for one dreamy moment, a lithe and painted serpent, coiled
round and round, and hissing in her ear.

A few minutes more, and mademoiselle was in the solitude of her own
apartment. She shut and bolted the door, and taking from her