s affair, and he
needed a woman's taste to help him. It was I who selected the colours
for Mrs. Hill's drawing-room carpet, I who chose the silk hangings for
Miss Leonard's boudoir, I who rearranged in the cabinets the curiosities
about which no one but a stray mouse or two had been curious for many
years. I knew well that I did nothing but what any other person could
do, yet it pleased me to see how John overrated my services. It
delighted me to hear him praise to his mother my "exquisite taste and
skill;" but it pained me to see her anxious look from him to me. I knew
she feared that he was getting to love me well; sometimes with a mixture
of fear and joy I thought it myself. I guessed that his mother would
rather keep her son by her side unwed--perhaps that he could not afford
to marry. I often longed to slip my hand in hers, and say, "Be not
afraid, I am true;" but I could only look straight in her eyes and be
silent. And this thought, perhaps because I might not speak it out and
have done with it, remained with me, and preyed upon my mind. About this
time I began to lie awake at nights, planning how I might show Mrs.
Hollingford that I had no wish to thrust myself between her and her son.

And so it came that there arose a strangeness between John and me. I did
not wish it to be so, but it happened naturally as a consequence of all
my thinking and planning. It grew up in the midst of our pleasant work
at the Hall, and it was burthensome, for it took the joyous adornment
off everything, made handsome things ugly, and comfortable things
dreary. It made the snowy landscape lonely, and the red sun angry. It
made me cold and disobliging, the girls dull, and John proud and
reserved. Jane spoke of it to me; she said:

"What is the matter between you and John? You used to be such good
friends. Now you hurry down-stairs in the evenings, though you know he
likes our chat round the school-room fire. And when we go to the Hall
you start early for the purpose of walking home without him."

"Don't be foolish, Jane," I said; "John and I are just as good friends
as ever. But you must not suppose he always cares for our women's
chatter. We must give him a little rest sometimes."

Jane was silenced, but not satisfied. She thought I was beginning to
look down on her brother. The proud, loving heart would not brook this,
and she, too, estranged herself from me. The girl was very dear to me,
and it was a trial.

Thus a division gr