, throwing down her work, and covering
her face with her hands.

"This goes on for a while," proceeded Maria, as if she did not observe
her companion, "this goes on for a while, smoothly, innocently,
serenely. Mankind are then true and noble, the world is passing fair,
and God is tender and bountiful. All evil is seen to be tending to
good; all tears are meant to be wiped away; the gloom of the gloomy is
faithless; virtue is easy and charming; and the vice of the vicious is
unaccountable. Thus does young life glide on for a time. Then there
comes a day--it is often a mystery why it should be that day of all
days--when the innocent, and gay, and confident young creature finds
herself in sudden trouble. The film on which she lightly trod has burst
and she is in an abyss. It seems a mere trifle that plunged her there.
Her friend did not come when she looked for him, or he is gone
somewhere, or he has said something that she did not expect. Some such
trifle reveals to her that she depends wholly upon him--that she has for
long been living only for him, and on the unconscious conclusion that he
has been living only for her. At the image of his dwelling anywhere but
by her side, of his having any interest apart from hers, the universe
is, in a moment, shrouded in gloom. Her heart is sick, and there is no
rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a
maidenly pride, and an innocent confidence: her confidence is wholly
broken-down; her pride is wounded and the agony of the wound is
intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is endurable
but a sense of guilt. If there be an exception, this is it. This
wounding of the spirit ought not perhaps to be, but it is very like the
sting of guilt; and a `wounded spirit who can bear?'"

"How is it borne--so many as are the sufferers, and of a class usually
thought so weak?"

"That is a mistake. There is not on earth a being stronger than a woman
in the concealment of her love. The soldier is called brave who
cheerfully bears about the pain of a laceration to his dying day; and
criminals, who, after years of struggle, unbosom themselves of their
secret, give tremendous accounts of the sufferings of those years; but I
question whether a woman whose existence has been burdened with an
unrequited love, will not have to unfold in the next world a more
harrowing tale than either of these."

"It ought not to be so."

"It ought not, where