MADISON.'

Poor Charlotte! The wound was a great deal too deep for her usual
childish tears, or even for a single word. She stood still, cold, and
almost unconscious till she heard a step, then she put the cruel letter
away in her bosom, and went about her work as usual.

They thought her looking very pale, and Jane now and then reproached
her with eating no more than a sparrow, and told her she was getting
into a dwining way; but she made no answer, except that she 'could do
her work.' At last, one Sunday evening, when she had been left alone
with the children, her mistress found her sitting at the foot of her
bed, among the sleeping little ones, weeping bitterly but silently.
Isabel's kindness at length opened her heart, and she put the letter
into her hand. Poor little thing, it was very meekly borne: 'Please
don't tell no one, ma'am,' she said; 'I couldn't hear him blamed!'

'But what does he mean? He must be under some terrible error. Who is
this Ford?'

'It is Delaford, ma'am, I make no doubt, though however he could have
got there! And, oh dear me! if I had only told poor Tom the whole,
that I was a silly girl, and liked his flatteries now and then, but
constant in my heart I always was!'

Isabel could not but suppose that Delaford, if it were he, might have
exaggerated poor Charlotte's little flirtation; but there was small
comfort here, since contradiction was impossible. The U. S., over
which the poor child had puzzled in vain, was no field in which to
follow him up--he had not even dated his letter; and it was a very,
very faint hope that Lord Fitzjocelyn might trace him out, especially
as he had evidently fled in disgrace; and poor Charlotte sobbed
bitterly over his troubles, as well as her own.

She was better after she had told her mistress, though still she shrank
from any other sympathy. Even Jane's pity would have been too much for
her, and her tender nature was afraid of the tongues that would have
discussed her grief. Perhaps the high-toned nature of Isabel was the
very best to be brought into contact with the poor girl's spirit, which
was of the same order, and many an evening did Isabel sit in the
twilight, beside the children's beds, talking to her, or sometimes
reading a few lines to show her how others had suffered in the same
way. 'It is my own fault,' said poor Charlotte; 'it all came of my
liking to be treated like one above the common, and it serves me right.
Yes, ma'am, t