birch leaves that trembled over her
head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia.
Arriving at her feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude
which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the kitchen of the old
farmhouse. Zenobia remembered it.

"Ah, Priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed since
then! You kneel to a dethroned princess. You, the victorious one!
But he is waiting for you. Say what you wish, and leave me."

"We are sisters!" gasped Priscilla.

I fancied that I understood the word and action. It meant the offering
of herself, and all she had, to be at Zenobia's disposal. But the
latter would not take it thus.

"True, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word, she
stooped down and kissed Priscilla; but not lovingly, for a sense of
fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia's
heart. "We had one father! You knew it from the first; I, but a
little while,--else some things that have chanced might have been
spared you. But I never wished you harm. You stood between me and an
end which I desired. I wanted a clear path. No matter what I meant.
It is over now. Do you forgive me?"

"O Zenobia," sobbed Priscilla, "it is I that feel like the guilty one!"

"No, no, poor little thing!" said Zenobia, with a sort of contempt.
"You have been my evil fate, but there never was a babe with less
strength or will to do an injury. Poor child! Methinks you have but a
melancholy lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide, cheerless
heart, where, for aught you know,--and as I, alas! believe,--the fire
which you have kindled may soon go out. Ah, the thought makes me
shiver for you! What will you do, Priscilla, when you find no spark
among the ashes?"

"Die!" she answered.

"That was well said!" responded Zenobia, with an approving smile.
"There is all a woman in your little compass, my poor sister.
Meanwhile, go with him, and live!"

She waved her away with a queenly gesture, and turned her own face to
the rock. I watched Priscilla, wondering what judgment she would pass
between Zenobia and Hollingsworth; how interpret his behavior, so as to
reconcile it with true faith both towards her sister and herself; how
compel her love for him to keep any terms whatever with her sisterly
affection! But, in truth, there was no such difficulty as I imagined.
Her engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth could hav