er frame to put these
same flowers into."

"Now, that is really too bad, making you so much extra trouble when you
are feeling so ill. I noticed, though, that it had lost its freshness
and purity--looking, in fact, as if some careless servant had swept on
it."

"I presume that is the case," said Clemence; "any way, it is completely
ruined now."

"What can this mean?" she exclaimed, a moment after, holding up a lady's
gold pin. "Is it not somewhat remarkable to find an article of this
description here?"

"No," said Ulrica Hardyng, coming forward, with an expression of
contempt upon her fine features. "I can't say as I consider it so. I can
understand precisely the motive that induced that woman to plot this
piece of mischief. She meant to ruin you, Clemence, in the estimation of
the whole community; in short, to brand you as dishonest. If you had
effected a sale of the article, without examining it closely, you would
never have detected the proximity of this valuable ornament, and when it
was called for, which would surely have occurred, you could not, as a
matter of course, have produced it. Do you not see the whole trap at a
glance?"

"What have I not escaped?" ejaculated Clemence, pale with agitation.
"What motive could possibly have led a comparative stranger to act
thus?"

"There are numberless reasons," replied her friend. "The woman had
placed herself, to a certain extent, in your power, by her uncalled for
revelations of their domestic affairs, and she wished to have something
to hold as a rod over you."

"Don't you think it might have been an accident?" willing, as usual, to
believe every one but herself in the right.

"No," said Mrs. Hardyng, indignantly, "it was a premeditated act, as
deliberate as it was infernal. My innocent darling, God has protected
you, and vanquished your enemy."

"What base, designing people there are in the world," sighed the girl,
sinking down by the couch upon which her friend reclined, upon her
return from a walk the next evening. "You were right, Ulrica. I read in
that woman's guilty face, to-night, the confirmation of my doubts."

"She did not admit it?" said the other, starting up eagerly.

"Not in words, but her looks proclaimed her part in the transaction more
eloquently than any form of speech. She knew that I read her craven soul
as I stood before her."

"This is too much?" said Mrs. Hardyng, rising and pacing the floor in
violent agitation. "I will see to th