had too often
slighted--she read therein,--

"Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest."

And as she so read, a more calm and settled expression spread over her
features; and after much musing and much thankfulness, she sought the
chamber of her friend. Constantia was not alone, for, pale and weak, and
trembling,--still like the aspen which every breeze may agitate,--the
little Puritan Barbara crouched on an old cushion by the side of her
lady's bed.

It did not escape the Lady Frances, that however thankful and comforted
was Constantia by her release from the terrible doom of a union with Sir
Willmott Burrell, she was deeply humbled and smitten by the publicity
that had been given to her father's meditated crime, and she skilfully
avoided any allusion to the scene of the night. The feelings of the
maiden were, however, elicited sufficiently to satisfy even the
curiosity of Frances Cromwell, by one of those simple incidents that
speak more eloquently than words. As Barbara sat on the cushion, she
could see into the garden beneath: the window overhung the very spot
where Walter had gathered the wild rose as he went forth a prisoner,
with Major Wellmore, from the house in which he was already considered a
master; and the simple girl discerned, amid the foliage of the trees,
even Walter himself, whose gaze was fixed upon the casement above.

"Look, Mistress, look!" she exclaimed.

Lady Frances and Constantia did look both at the same moment, and saw
the same sight. They also both at once withdrew their glance, and, as
the eyes of the ladies encountered, a blush, not of shame, or pride, or
anger, overspread the fine features of Constantia--it was the pure
bright colouring of assured affection; it said more than if volumes had
been written to express her feelings. If she seemed less dignified, she
looked more lovely than ever: it was as sunshine lending new warmth and
fresh beauty to a landscape, which needed that alone to vivify and
enlighten, to cheer and charm, to gladden and give life.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Frances, clasping her hands--"thank God!--after
all, Constantia, you are but a woman!"

"My dear friend," replied the lady, literally turning on her couch to
hide her blushes, "this is no time to trifle: the melancholy----"

She paused for want of words: that proneness to dissemble, which
inevitably attends all women who ever were or ever will be in love, was
strugglin