any special reason?'

'Yes; I want her to soften and help me. She seems to draw and smooth
away the evil, and to keep me from myself. Nothing is so dreary where
she is.'

'I should not have expected to hear you, at your age, and with your
prospects, talk of dreariness.'

'That is all over,' said Theodora. 'I have told him that it cannot be. I
am glad, for one reason, that I shall not seem to deceive you any more.
Has papa told you what he thinks my history!'

'He has told me of your previous affair.'

'I wonder what is his view?'

'His view is one of deep regret; he thinks your tempers were
incompatible.'

Theodora laughed. 'He has a sort of termagant notion of me.'

'I am afraid you do no justice to your father's affection and anxiety.'

'It is he who does me no justice,' said Theodora.

'Indeed, I do not think that can be your sister's teaching,' said Mr.
Martindale.

'I wish she was here!' said Theodora, again. 'But now you have heard my
father's story, you shall hear mine;' and with tolerable fairness,
she related the history of the last few months. The clergyman was much
interested in the narrative of this high-toned mind,--'like sweet bells
jangled,' and listened with earnest and sorrowful attention. There was
comfort in the outpouring; and as she spoke, the better spirit so far
prevailed, that she increasingly took more blame to herself, and threw
less on others. She closed her confession by saying, 'You see, I may
well speak of dreariness.'

'Of dreariness for the present,' was the answer; 'but of hope. You put
me in mind of some vision which I have read of, where safety and peace
were to be attained by bowing to the dust, to creep beneath a gateway,
the entrance to the glorious place. You seem to me in the way of
learning that lesson.'

'I have bent to make the avowal I thought I never could have spoken,'
said Theodora.

'And there is my hope of you. Now for the next step.'

'The next! what is it?'

'Thankfully and meekly to accept the consequences of these sad errors.'

'You mean this lonely, unsatisfactory life?'

'And this displeasure of your father.'

'But, indeed, he misjudges me.'

'Have you ever given him the means of forming a different judgment?'

'He has seen all. If I am distrusted, I cannot descend to justify
myself.'

'I am disappointed in you, Theodora. Where is your humility?'

With these words Mr. Martindale quitted her. He had divined that her
feelings would work