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whenever I passed her little garden, and heard her singing. For the last few weeks, a melancholy change has taken place in the poor girl's appearance, which gives me pain to witness. Her cheek has lost its bloom; her step its elasticity; her dress is neglected; and the garden in which she worked and sang so merrily, and in which she took so much delight, is overrun with weeds. Her whole appearance indicates the most poignant grief. When I questioned her to-day upon the subject, she answered me with a burst of tears--tears, which seem so unnatural for one of her disposition to shed. Perhaps, Mr. Anthony," she continued, with an air of increasing interest, "you can tell me something of the history of this young girl--as she is one of your uncle's tenants--which may lead me to discover the cause of her grief?" Before Anthony could reply to this somewhat embarrassing question, he was called upon by his uncle, who was playing chess with the old Captain, to decide some important problem in the game; and Godfrey, who had been a painfully observant listener to their conversation, glided into his vacant seat. "I wish, Miss Whitmore, that I could satisfactorily answer all your generous inquiries with regard to Mary Mathews. But I know and hear so little of the gossip of the village, and with the poor girl's private history I am totally unacquainted--nay, the girl herself is to me a perfect stranger. No person is better able to give you the information you require than my cousin Anthony; he knows Mary well. In spite of my father's prohibitions, she was always a chosen playfellow of his. He professes a great admiration for this beautiful peasant, and takes a deep interest in all that concerns her." Why did Juliet's cheek at that moment grow so very pale? Why did she sigh so deeply, and suddenly drop a conversation which she had commenced with such an apparent concern for the person who had formed the subject of it? Love may have its joys, but oh, how painfully are they contrasted with its doubts and fears! She had suffered the serpent of jealousy to coil around her heart, and for the first time felt its envenomed sting. When Anthony returned to his seat he found his fair companion unusually cold and reserved. A few minutes after, she complained of sudden indisposition, and left the room, and she did not return that evening. That night, Juliet wept herself to sleep. "Is it not evident," she said to herself, "that this poor Ma
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