rs. Hardyng's former husband, and probably she wanted
to gratify her own malice. I can understand her motive, for no doubt she
cordially hated this woman, whom she felt she had wronged."

"But Miss Graystone?" queried Mrs. Swan. "I should think her sweet,
patient face would have touched the heart of a stone."

"It seems she did have some compunctions," said the old lady; "don't you
remember there at the last meeting of the Society, she said she would
have taken the girl's part, only she thought she could hurt the widow
still more by wounding this young girl? Betsey can tell you better about
that, though," she added, wickedly; "ask the former Secretary to give
you the particulars. I had not the honor of being present on that
occasion myself."

"Don't ask me to rehearse it," said Miss Pryor, in subdued tones, "I
can't bear it. My nerves have never yet recovered from the shock."

"We will excuse you, then, Betsey," said the other, magnanimously, "and
proceed to the more congenial occupation of disposing of some of these
nice biscuits and delicious tea that I see Mrs. Swan has prepared for
us."

The pensive beauty of the mild Indian Summer flooded hill and valley
now. Where the sombre shades of green had erst clothed the forest,
brilliant pennons of flame-colored, and crimson-dyed, and paler tints,
shading into amber, and gray, and russet brown, lit up the woods with
their bright-hued splendor.

Clemence, with her little charge, loved to wander through these places,
that nature had clothed in rarest beauty for her worshippers. This was
her favorite season of the year. Sometimes a foreboding oppressed this
young dreamer that it might be her last hours of earthly enjoyment. She
used often to look with pity into the child's face, where a sweet
seriousness lingered, and it gave her sympathetic heart pain to think
that the child should be old beyond her years. Indeed, there was the
same wistfulness about the younger face that we have noticed about our
heroine, and there was a gravity of expression about the tender mouth
that told of a capacity for suffering unusual in one so young. It was
apparent that, like the tried friend who toiled daily to sustain her,
sorrow had early marked the orphan girl for its own. If misfortune or
death were to overtake this fragile creature who stood between her and
the storms of life, what would become of Ruth?

There were trials, and temptations, and dangers lurking in the path of
the inno