tiful eyes, Elsie," he said,--"sometimes very piercing,--but soft
now, and looking as if there were something beneath them that friendship
might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to render
your life happier."

"Love me!" said Elsie Venner.

What shall a man do, when a woman makes such a demand, involving such
an avowal? It was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of Mr.
Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled almost, as if he had been a
woman listening to her lover's declaration.

"Elsie," he said, presently, "I so long to be of some use to you, to
have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or
do anything to put us in false relations. I do love you, Elsie, as a
suffering sister with sorrows of her own,--as one whom I would save at
the risk of my happiness and life,--as one who needs a true friend more
than--any of all the young girls I have known. More than this you would
not ask me to say. You have been through excitement and trouble lately,
and it has made you feel such a need more than ever. Give me your hand,
dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we
were children of the same mother."

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It seemed to him that a cold aura
shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his
heart. He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave
kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked almost in silence the rest
of the way. Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and
returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went at once to her own room, and
did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to
be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door
unlocked, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her
brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great
suffering. Her first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm
by some deadly means or other. But Elsie, saw her fear, and reassured
her.

"No," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I
am not dying. You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain
from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is no use in the pain,
that I know of; if he can stop it, let him."

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot
of Caustic, the old bay hors