he
next,--same apparition! She then slowly passed her eyes down
the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile
distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once, she
deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every
schoolmate in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The
teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the
joke. The servants could not suppress a titter.

'When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster
Hall,--when the Methodist preacher walked through a line
of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or rotten
egg,--they had some preparation for the crisis, though it
might be very difficult to meet it with an impassible brow.
Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the
midst of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her
disgrace.

'She had ruled like a queen, in the midst of her companions;
she had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded
them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a popular
favorite might not be loved. Now she felt that she had been
but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts
she never had doubted.

'Yet the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the
kind of spirit which, in a better cause, had made the Roman
matron truly say of her death-wound, "It is not painful,
Poetus." She did not blench,--she did not change countenance.
She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She made
remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes.

'The wrath of the foe, of course, rose higher, and the moment
they were freed from the restraints of the dining room, they
all ran off, gayly calling, and sarcastically laughing, with
backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.

'Alone she went to her room, locked the door, and threw
herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had
sometimes threatened her life, in earlier childhood, but of
later years she had outgrown them. School-hours came, and she
was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no
answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter
was their penitence, and that of her companions, at the state
in which they found her. For some hours terrible anxiety was
felt, but at last nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a
deep slumber.