h cruelty?" replied Mrs.
Hamilton, bending over her as she spoke, and removing from those flushed
temples the hair which hung heavy with moisture upon them, and as she
did so Emmeline felt the tears of her mother fall thick and fast on her
own scorching brow. She started from her knees, gazed wildly and
doubtingly upon her, and tottering from exhaustion, would have fallen,
had not Mrs. Hamilton, with a sudden movement, received her in her arms.
For a moment Emmeline struggled as if to break from her embrace, but
then, with a sudden transition of feeling, clasped her arms convulsively
about her mother's neck, and burst into a long and violent but relieving
flood of tears.

"I meant never, never to have revealed my secret," she exclaimed, in a
voice almost inaudible, as her mother, seating her on a couch near them,
pressed her to her heart, and permitted some minutes to pass away in
that silence of sympathy which to the afflicted is so dear. "And now
that it has been wrung from me, I know not what I do or say. Oh, if I
have spoken aught disrespectfully to you or papa just now, I meant it
not, indeed I did not; but they dared to speak false tales, and I could
not sit calmly to hear them," she added, shuddering.

"There was nothing in your words, my own love, to give us pain with
regard to ourselves," said Mrs. Hamilton, in her most soothing tone, as
again and again she pressed her quivering lips to that flushed cheek,
and tried to kiss away the now streaming tears. "Do not let that thought
add to your uneasiness, my own darling."

"And can you forgive me, mother?" and Emmeline buried her face yet more
closely in her mother's bosom.

"Forgive you, Emmeline! is there indeed aught in your acquaintance with
Arthur Myrvin which demands my forgiveness?" replied her mother, in a
tone of anxiety and almost alarm.

"Oh, no, no! but you may believe I have encouraged these weak emotions;
that I have wilfully thought on them till I have made myself thus
miserable; that I have called for his love--given him encouragement:
indeed, indeed I have not. I have struggled hard to obtain
forgetfulness--to think of him no more, to regain happiness, but it
would not come. I feel--I know I can never, never be again the joyous
light-hearted girl that I was once; all feels so changed."

"Do not say so, my own love; this it but the language of despondency,
now too naturally your own; but permit it not to gain too much
ascendency, dearest. Whe