s were yet visible upon her long drooping lashes.

'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
A living death, and ever-dying life.'

'Cytherea,' he whispered, kissing her. She awoke with a start, and
vented an exclamation before recovering her judgment. 'He's gone!' she
said.

'He has told me all,' said Graye soothingly. 'He is going off early
to-morrow morning. 'Twas a shame of him to win you away from me, and
cruel of you to keep the growth of this attachment a secret.'

'We couldn't help it,' she said, and then jumping up--'Owen, has he told
you _all_?'

'All of your love from beginning to end,' he said simply.

Edward then had not told more--as he ought to have done: yet she could
not convict him. But she would struggle against his fetters. She tingled
to the very soles of her feet at the very possibility that he might be
deluding her.

'Owen,' she continued, with dignity, 'what is he to me? Nothing. I must
dismiss such weakness as this--believe me, I will. Something far more
pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my position steadily
in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I mean to advertise once
more.'

'Advertising is no use.'

'This one will be.' He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of her
answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and showed it him.
'See what I am going to do,' she said sadly, almost bitterly. This was
her third effort:--

'LADY'S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.--G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.'

Owen--Owen the respectable--looked blank astonishment. He repeated in a
nameless, varying tone, the two words--

'Lady's-maid!'

'Yes; lady's-maid. 'Tis an honest profession,' said Cytherea bravely.

'But _you_, Cytherea?'

'Yes, I--who am I?'

'You will never be a lady's-maid--never, I am quite sure.'

'I shall try to be, at any rate.'

'Such a disgrace--'

'Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!' she said, rather warmly.
'You know very well--'

'Well, since you will, you must,' he interrupted. 'Why do you put
"inexperienced?"'

'Because I am.'

'Never mind that--scratch out "inexperienced." We are poor, Cytherea,
aren't we?' he murmured, after a silence, 'and it seems that the two
months will close my engagement here.'

'We can put up with being poor,' she said, 'if they only give us work
to do.... Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a curse, and
even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, a