, I 'm all right, Mrs. Harper," replied the dancing-mistress, with a
brave attempt at cheerfulness,--"just a little tired, after a hard day's
work."

She sat down on the couch by the elder woman's side. Mrs. Harper took
her hand and stroked it gently, and Clara felt soothed and quieted by
her touch.

"There are tears in your eyes and trouble in your face. I know it, for I
have shed the one and known the other. Tell me, child, what ails you? I
am older than you, and perhaps I have learned some things in the hard
school of life that may be of comfort or service to you."

Such a request, coming from a comparative stranger, might very properly
have been resented or lightly parried. But Clara was not what would be
called self-contained. Her griefs seemed lighter when they were shared
with others, even in spirit. There was in her nature a childish strain
that craved sympathy and comforting. She had never known--or if so it
was only in a dim and dreamlike past--the tender, brooding care that was
her conception of a mother's love. Mrs. Hohlfelder had been fond of her
in a placid way, and had given her every comfort and luxury her means
permitted. Clara's ideal of maternal love had been of another and more
romantic type; she had thought of a fond, impulsive mother, to whose
bosom she could fly when in trouble or distress, and to whom she could
communicate her sorrows and trials; who would dry her tears and soothe
her with caresses. Now, when even her kind foster-mother was gone, she
felt still more the need of sympathy and companionship with her own sex;
and when this little Mrs. Harper spoke to her so gently, she felt her
heart respond instinctively.

"Yes, Mrs. Harper," replied Clara with a sigh, "I am in trouble, but it
is trouble that you nor any one else can heal."

"You do not know, child. A simple remedy can sometimes cure a very grave
complaint. Tell me your trouble, if it is something you are at liberty
to tell."

"I have a story," said Clara, "and it is a strange one,--a story I have
told to but one other person, one very dear to me."

"He must be dear to you indeed, from the tone in which you speak of him.
Your very accents breathe love."

"Yes, I love him, and if you saw him--perhaps you have seen him, for he
has looked in here once or twice during the dancing-lessons--you would
know why I love him. He is handsome, he is learned, he is ambitious, he
is brave, he is good; he is poor, but he will not always be