y pupil, I long to have you in my own home. Remember, no
matter what happens, you have promised yourself to me."

"I shall not forget;" but he saw her shudder.

"Shall I speak to your aunt about this matter before I go?"

"No, it would only distress her; leave it all with me. It is late, and I
must go. Good-bye, sir."

He promised to see her again before his departure, and she walked home with
her head bowed and a sharp continual pain gnawing at her heart.

In the calm, peaceful years of ordinary childhood the soul matures slowly;
but a volcanic nature like Electra's, subjected to galling trials, rapidly
hardens, and answers every stroke with the metallic ring of age. Keen
susceptibility to joy or pain taught her early that less impressive
characters are years in learning, and it was lamentably true that while yet
a mere girl, she suffered as acutely as a woman. Russell knew that a change
had come over his cousin, but was too constantly engaged, too entirely
absorbed by his studies, to ask or analyse the cause. She never watched at
the gate for him now, never sprang with outstretched arms to meet him,
never hung over the back of his chair and caressed his hands as formerly.
When not waiting upon her aunt, she was as intent upon her books as he, and
though invariably kind and unselfish in her conduct toward him, she was
evidently constrained in his presence. As the summer wore on, Mrs. Aubrey's
health failed rapidly, and she was confined to her couch. One morning when
Mr. Campbell, the pastor, had spent some time in the sick-room praying with
the sufferer and administering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Electra
followed him to the door, leaving Russell with his mother. The gentle
pastor took her hand kindly, and looked at her with filling eyes.

"You think my aunt is worse?"

"Yes, my child. I think that very soon she will be with her God. She will
scarcely survive till night----"

She turned abruptly from him and threw herself down across the foot of the
bed, burying her face in her arms. Russell sat with his mother's hands in
his, while she turned her brown eyes toward him, and exhorted him to commit
himself and his future to the hands of a merciful God. Electra was not
forgotten; she advised her to go to a cousin of her mother, residing in
Virginia. Long before she had written to this lady, informing her of her
own feebleness and of the girl's helpless condition; and a kind answer had
been returned, cordia