ews had circulated through the house,
and mutually stopped to gaze in each other's face.

"W-ell?" queried Lilias timidly. "You've heard! Mother has told you.
What do you--what do you think about it?"

Nan closed her eyes, and tilted her chin in the air.

"Sneak!" she said shortly; and the other started back in astonishment.

"Wh-what do you say?"

"Sneak! That's what I called you. It's a mean, sneakish thing to
desert a man just when he is in trouble and needs all the help he can--"

"It wasn't just then. I had been thinking of it a long time. If he had
stayed away a week longer, I would have spoken to mother all the same.
I had made up my mind. You don't understand what you are talking about,
and you have no right to call me names. It's vulgar and unladylike."

"I am thankful for that!" cried Nan piously. "If your behaviour is
ladylike, I'll be as vulgar as I can. I'd rather not talk, if you
please, until I have got over it a little. I'm afraid of what I may
say."

She went stalking downstairs, and Lilias turned into the porch-room and
sat herself down in despair. Elsie was seated at the table engaged in
informing the diary of the latest family event, and she turned a look of
such sympathetic sorrow upon the new-comer, that Lilias felt that here,
at last, she had found a friend in need.

"My heart is broken, Elsie!" she sobbed tragically. "Every one has
turned against me. Father--mother--Nan--they are all cruel to me.
Their words cut into my heart! I can never forget them--never feel the
same again."

Elsie drew a sigh so long and fluttering that it was almost worthy to be
ranked as a groan.

"No--never, never! A blow like this, coming in early youth, will cloud
and darken all your life. You can never be a girl again. The
remembrance of all you have suffered, and of the life you have wrecked,
will haunt your dreams, and make you old before your time. You feel it
now, but you'll feel it more and more, like a leaden weight pressing
upon you, crushing out all your joy..."

"Dear me, Elsie, how you talk! You might be a penny novel, to prose
away like that. You are a fine Job's comforter for a poor girl to come
to in her trouble! It's hard enough for me as it is, without trying to
make it worse. I shall drown myself, if this sort of thing goes on.
Maud sulking, Nan raving, you croaking! What a prospect! And I shall
have to endure it all my life too, for I shall never marry--now."

"