talking in this room, and how
constantly your sympathy has been my support and your wisdom my guide!"

Lawrence Newt, whose face had grown very grave, waved his hand
deprecatingly.

"I know, I know," she continued. "Let that remain unsaid. It can not be
unforgotten. But I know your secrets too."

They looked at each other.

"You love Amy Waring."

His face became inscrutable, and his eyes were fixed quietly upon hers.
She betrayed no embarrassment, but continued,

"Amy Waring loves you."

A sudden light shot into that inscrutable face. The clear eyes were
veiled for an instant by an exquisite emotion.

"What separates you?"

There was an authority in the tone of the question which Lawrence Newt
found hard to resist. It was an authority natural to such intimate
knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely
unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he
could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected
her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty and
doubt.

Meanwhile she had resumed her sewing, and was rocking quietly in her
chair. Lawrence Newt arose and found his tongue. He bowed in that quaint
way which seemed to involve him more closely in himself, and to warn off
every body else.

"I prefer to hear that a woman loves me from her own lips."

The tone was perfectly kind and respectful; but Aunt Martha felt that she
had been struck dumb.

"I thank you from my heart," Lawrence Newt said to her. And taking her
hand, he bent over it and kissed it. She sat looking at him, and at
length said,

"Mayn't I do any thing to show my gratitude?"

"You have already done more than I deserve," replied Lawrence Newt. "I
must go now. Good-by! God bless you!"

She heard his quick footfalls as he descended the stairs. For a long time
the sombre woman sat rocking idly to and fro, holding her work in her
hand, and with her eyes fixed upon the floor. She did not seem to see
clearly, whatever it might be she was looking at. She shook out her work
and straightened it, and folded it regularly, and looked at it as if the
secret would pop out of the proper angle if she could only find it.
Then she creased it and crimped it--still she could not see. Then she
took a few stitches slowly, regarding fixedly a corner of the room as if
the thought she was in search of was a mouse, and might at any moment run
out of his hole and over the f