r circumstances beyond your control; and, while I warmly
sympathize with all your sorrows, I know that you are still
sufficiently young to rectify the unfortunate warping that your nature
received in its mournful early years. To ask me to respect you is as
idle and useless and impotent as the soft murmur of this June breeze
in the elm boughs above us; but you can command my perfect confidence
and friendship solely on condition that you merit it. Salome,
something very unusual has influenced you to-day, forcing you to throw
aside the rubbish that you patiently piled over your better self until
it was effectually concealed; and, if you are willing to be frank with
me, I should be glad to know what has so healthfully affected you. I
believe I can guess: has not little Jessie wooed and won her sister's
heart, melting all its icy selfishness and warming its holiest
recesses?"

At this moment Stanley bounded down the steps to meet them, and,
bending over to receive his kiss and embrace, Salome gladly evaded a
reply. That night, after she had taught her brother his lessons for
the next day and made him repeat the prayer learned in the dormitory
of the Asylum,--when she had read Miss Jane to sleep and seen the
doctor set out on his mission of mercy, she brightened the lamp-light
in her own room, and, opening the parcel, drew out and commenced the
dainty embroidery which she had promised should be completed at an
early day.

The night was warm, but the sea-breeze sang a lullaby in the trees
that peeped in at her window, and now and then a strong gust
blew the flame almost to the top of the lamp-chimney. Stanley
slept soundly in his trundle-bed, occasionally startling her by
half-uttered exclamations, as in his dreams he chased rabbits or
found partridge-eggs. Oblivious of passing hours, and profoundly
immersed in speculations concerning her future, the girl sewed
on, working scallop after scallop, and flower after flower, in
the gossamer cambric between her slender fingers. Stars that looked
upon her early in the night had gone down into blue abysms below
the horizon, and the midnight song of a mocking-bird, swinging in
a lemon-tree beneath her window, had long since hushed itself with
the chirp of crickets and gossip of the katydids.

A tap on the facing of her open door finally aroused her, and she
hastily attempted to hide her work, as Dr. Grey asked,--

"What keeps you up so late? Are you dressing a doll for Jessie?"