night for
the morrow. She knew this quite well. She knew that that was the sole
and the full measure of her feeling towards the Dictator. But all the
same, up to this time she had never felt any stirring of emotion towards
any other man. She must have known--sharp-sighted girl that she
was--that poor Mr. Wilkins adored her. She _did_ know it--and she was
very much interested in the knowledge, and thought it was such a pity,
and was sorry for him--honestly and sincerely sorry--and was ever so
kind and friendly to him. But her mind was not greatly troubled about
his love. She took it for granted that Mr. Wilkins would get over his
trouble, and would marry some girl who would be fond of him. It always
happens like that. So her mind was at rest about Wilkins.

Thus, her mind being at rest about Wilkins, because she knew that, as
far as she was concerned, it never could come to anything, and her mind
being equally at rest about the Dictator, because she felt sure that on
his part it could never come to anything, she had leisure to give some
of her sympathies to Hamilton, now that she knew his secret. Then about
Hamilton--how about him?

There are moments in life--not moments in actual clock-time, but
eventful moments in feelings when one seems to be conscious of a special
influence of sympathy and kindness breathing over him like a healing
air. A great misfortune has come down upon one's life, and the
conviction is for the time that nothing in life can ever be well with
him again. The sun shines no more for him; the birds sing no more for
him; or, if their notes do make their way into his dulled and saddened
ears, it is only to break his heart as the notes of the birds did for
the sufferer on the banks of bonnie Doon. The afflicted one seems to lie
as in a darkened room, and to have no wish ever to come out into the
broad, free, animating air again--no wish to know any more what is going
on in the world outside. Friends of all kinds, and in all kindness, come
and bring their futile, barren consolations, and make offers of
unneeded, unacceptable service, as unpalatable as the offer of the Grand
Duchess in 'Alice in Wonderland,' who, declaring that she knows what the
thirsty, gasping little girl wants, tenders her a dry biscuit. The dry
biscuit of conventional service is put to the lips of the choking
sufferer, and cannot be swallowed. Suddenly some voice, perhaps all
unknown before, is heard in the darkened chamber, and it i