features new,
except to the auditor. There had been a long attachment, passionate love
and perfect trust, long engagement, marriage postponed because both were
poor, and the lover struggling into his profession, and then, it seemed
sudden and unaccountable, his marriage with some one else. "It was not
like him," said the governess in conclusion; "it was his ambition to get
on that blinded him."

"And he, was he happy?" asked Evelyn.

"I heard that he was not" (and she spoke reluctantly); "I fear not. How
could he be?" And the governess seemed overwhelmed in a flood of tender
and painful memories. "That was over twenty years ago. And I have been
happy, my darling, I have had such a happy life with you.

"I never dreamed I could have such a blessing. And you, child, will be
happy too; I know it."

And the two women, locked in each other's arms, found that consolation in
sympathy which steals away half the grief of the world. Ah! who knows a
woman's heart?

For Philip there was in these days no such consolation. It was a man's
way not to seek any, to roll himself up in his trouble like a hibernating
bear. And yet there were times when he had an intolerable longing for a
confidant, for some one to whom he could relieve himself of part of his
burden by talking. To Celia he could say nothing. Instinct told him
that he should not go to her. Of the sympathy of Alice he was sure, but
why inflict his selfish grief on her tender heart? But he was writing to
her often, he was talking to her freely about his perplexities, about
leaving the office and trusting himself to the pursuit of literature in
some way. And, in answer to direct questions, he told her that he had
seen Evelyn only a few times, and, the fact was, that Mrs. Mavick had cut
him dead. He could not give to his correspondent a very humorous turn to
this situation, for Alice knew--had she not seen them often together, and
did she not know the depths of Philip's passion? And she read between
the lines the real state of the case. Alice was indignant, but she did
not think it wise to make too much of the incident. Of Evelyn she wrote
affectionately--she knew she was a noble and high-minded girl. As to her
mother, she dismissed her with a country estimate. "You know, Phil,
that I never thought she was a lady."

But the lover was not to be wholly without comfort. He met by chance one
day on the Avenue Miss McDonald, and her greeting was so cordial that he
knew that