n tears at
church, and found her eyes red when she had been alone, but I don't
think it was a hard, cruel sorrow; I think the sunshine of her nature
managed to beam through it.'

'The sunshine was surely love,' said Louis, 'making the rainbow of hope
on the tears of repentance. Perhaps it is a blessing vouchsafed to the
true of heart to become aware of such a hidden constitutional infirmity
in time to wash it out with blessed tears like those.'

'Hidden,' said Clara, 'yes, indeed it was, even from herself, because
it never showed in manner, like my pride; she was gracious and affable
to all the world. I heard the weeding-women saying, 'she had not one
bit of pride,' and when I told her of it, she shook her head, and
laughed sadly, and said that was the kind of thing which had taken her
in.'

'Common parlance is a deceitful thing,' said Louis, sighing; 'people
can't even be sincere without doing harm! Well, I had looked to see
her made happy by harmony between those two!'

'She gave up the hope of seeing it,' said Clara, 'but she looked to it
all the same. She said meekly one day that it might be her penalty to
see them at variance in her own lifetime, but over her grave perhaps
they would be reconciled, and her prayers be answered. How she did love
Uncle Oliver! Do you know, Louis, what she was to him showed me what
the mother's love must be, which we never missed, because--because we
had her!'

'Don't talk of it, Clara,' said Louis, hastily; 'we cannot dwell on
ourselves, and bear it patiently!'

It was truly the loss of a most tender mother to them both; bringing
for the first time the sense of orphanhood on the girl, left between
the uncongenial though doting uncle, and the irritable though
affectionate brother; and Louis, though his home was not broken up,
suffered scarcely less. His aunt's playful sweetness had peculiarly
accorded with his disposition, and the affection and confidence of his
fond, clinging nature had fastened themselves upon her, all the more in
the absence of his own Mary. Each loss seemed to make the other more
painful. Aunt Kitty's correspondence was another link cut away between
him and Peru, and he had never known such a sense of dreariness in his
whole life. Clara was going patiently and quietly through those trying
days, with womanly considerateness; believing herself supported by her
brother, and being so in fact by the mere sisterly gratification of his
presence, though sh