owing him in
thought, even when he was not on the stage.

Sitting there in her room, she smiled as she remembered with what a
start of surprise she had recognized one among the groundlings in front
of the stage after the performance. It was Sir Guy, very plainly dressed
and gazing fixedly upon her. Doubtless he had been there during the
entire play, waiting in vain for one sign of recognition. But Shylock
had held her spellbound, and even for her lover she had been blind.

She felt a little touch of pity and compunction as she remembered these
things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips the letter she was holding.

"Poor boy!" she murmured. Then, shaking her head with a smile: "I wonder
how his letter found my room!" she said.

She rose, and, going to the window where the light was stronger,
flattened out the missive and read it again:

"MY DEAR, DEAR MARY--dear to me ever, e'en in thy displeasure--have I
fallen, then, so low in thy sight! May I not be forgiven, sweet girl, or
shall I ever stand as I have this day, gazing upward in vain for the
dear glance my fault hath forfeited?

"In sober truth, dear heart, I hate myself for what I was. What a sad
mummery of lisping nothings was my speech--and what a vanity was my
attire! Thou wast right, Mary, but oh! with what a ruthless hand didst
thou tear the veil from mine eyes! I have seen my fault and will amend
it, but oh! tell me it was thy love and not thine anger that hath
prompted thee. And yet--why didst thou avert thine eyes from me this
even? Sweet--speak but a word--write but a line--give some assurance,
dear, of pardon to him who is forever thine in the bonds of love."

She folded the letter slowly and slipped it into the bosom of her dress
with a smile on her lips and a far-away look in her eyes. She had known
this letter almost by heart before she received it. Had it not been one
of her New England collection? Foreknowledge of it had emboldened her to
rebuke her lover when she met him by the Bishopsgate--and yet--it had
been a surprise and a sweet novelty to her when she had found it on her
dressing-table the night before.

At length she turned slowly from the window and said softly:

"Guy's a good fellow, and I'm a lucky girl!"

There was a quick thumping of heavy feet on the landing, and a moment
later a young country girl entered. It was Betty, one of the serving
girls whom Dame Burton had brought with her to London.

The lass dropped a clumsy c