e reproaches of his conscience by accusing her of having
divulged it. There was not a manly impulse in his bosom; he gave her no
opportunity for explanation, but forsook her on the instant.

For a time the victim of this faithlessness sunk under the weight of her
disappointment. To her proud spirit the mortification was almost beyond
endurance. And if Divine Providence had not mercifully given to us, to
woman especially, strength according to our day, tempering the wind to
the shorn lamb, the world would be peopled with perpetual mourners. But
there is

"No grief so great but runneth to an end;
No hap so hard but will in time amend."

She bore up bravely, and in time her strong mind recovered in a good
degree its equilibrium. But she was now a subdued and thoughtful woman.
Four years passed away, during which her former admirers gradually
gathered around her again, solicitous, as before, to win her favor. To
one of them she gave her hand,--her heart was yet another's. Years of an
unhappy married life went over her, brightening no cloud above her head,
admitting no sunshine into her heart. All her ambitious aspirations had
been blasted, all her early hopes wrecked. Marriage had proved no
blessing to a mind so ill-regulated. Her mother died, and then her
husband. The secret source from which the mother had been supplied with
means was unknown to the daughter, and she had still pride enough to
refrain from all endeavor to solve the mystery. No one was able to do so
during the lifetime of the former,--who was there to do it after her
death?

Thus thrown upon herself when only twenty-six years of age, she went to
work; and when we came to the factory, we found her there, the most
industrious and skilful of all the operators. Employment gave a new turn
to her thoughts. New associations opened other and more hopeful views to
her mind. She became cheerful, sometimes animated, and, with my sister,
intimate and confiding.

But if interested in what my sister thus learned of her history, I was
to be still more surprised by the subsequent portion of it to which I
was myself a witness.

One day a gentleman came into the room where we were at work, and
obtained from the proprietor permission to examine the mode in which it
was carried on. His age was probably fifty, and his dress and manner
evinced polish and acquaintance with society: if dress was ever an index
of wealth, his also indicated that. He went slowly round