"How does the poor girl bear it?"

"She is very unhappy, and says she is not ashamed to have people know
she had been deceived; but many tell her they wouldn't mind anything
about it."

"They may say so," said Annie, raising her dark eyes to Edith, while a
deeper flush suffused her cheek; "but, Edith, I tell you, it will wear
and wear upon the secret springs of life, till it bears its victim to
the grave."

Edith gazed upon her with such an anxious, pitying expression, that
she felt she had betrayed her own secret, and bending her head to hide
her blushes, she picked up the mellow, golden colored fruit that lay
around her, and commenced rolling them down into the stream that
flowed at their feet. At that moment poor crazy Betsey Thornton came
bounding over the stone wall that separated that from an adjoining
enclosure, and gathering her blanket about her, stood curtesying and
laughing before them, repeating as she did so,

"Poor little Hannah Pease, poor little Hannah Pease--old Ben Thornton,
old Ben Thornton."

"Take some apples, Mrs. Thornton," said Edith, as she regarded her
with a sad expression of countenance.

She took them, curtesied, and with her low, gurgling laugh, leaped
over the wall, and went muttering on to rock or tree, or any other
object that came in her way.

"Edith," said Annie, "what poor Blanche is that, for a poor love sick
maiden, I am sure she must be? As she came with her large blanket
fluttering over the wall, it reminded me of Sir Walter Scott's poor
Blanche, that

"Stood hovering o'er the hollow way,
And fluttered wide her mantle gray."

Edith smiled as she replied,

"You are right--and yet you are wrong in your surmises; she is not the
victim of a faithless lover, but the victim of a faithless husband."

"But," replied Annie, "a victim to man's inconstancy, at any rate?"

"Oh, yes, Annie, that is what all the poets sing."

"And with all this before you, Edith, are you not afraid to unite your
destiny with Orville Somerset?"

"I sometimes fear to; but oh, if he is ever to prove untrue, may it be
before we are united by the solemn covenant of marriage."

"Perhaps it would be better, but I think it will never come to you,
Edith."

This conversation led to a full disclosure of Edward's conduct, and
Annie unbosomed herself more fully to her cousin than she had ever
done before. She sympathised with her in her feelings, saying,

"O, Annie, should Orville serve me so, I d