dmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. In her last
conscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget that you and George
are spirits consecrated to each other. Wait--in the certain knowledge
that no human power can hinder your union in the time to come."

While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, our
visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it had
been abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my self-degradation,
I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to see
me.

The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no elder
woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her father, who
invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of the old times. The
secret sorrow that preys on body and mind alike preyed on _her_. A cold,
caught at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was in
danger of death. When she recovered, her head had been stripped of its
beautiful hair by the doctor's order. The sacrifice had been
necessary to save her life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel
sacrifice--her hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear,
it had completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown;
it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At first
sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again.

But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the face and
the figure gained.

In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of the
old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing Scotch air and
the healthy mode of life, into a comely young woman. Her features were
still, as in her early years, not regularly beautiful; but the change
in her was not the less marked on that account. The wan face had filled
out, and the pale complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its
remarkable development was perceived even by the rough people about her.
Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into womanly
fullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, in
the strictest sense of the word.

Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period of
their lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his daughter of
former days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her sweet, equable
flow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she went through the daily
routine of her duties enduringly. The