ess,
she looked down upon the sister she had lately learned to know,
saying, warmly,--

"Yes, 'Heaven bless your dear heart, Nan!' I never can forget all you
have been to me; and when I am far away with Philip, there will always
be one countenance more beautiful to me than any pictured face I may
discover, there will be one place more dear to me than Rome. The face
will be yours, Nan,--always so patient, always so serene; and the
dearer place will be this home of ours, which you have made so
pleasant to me all these years by kindnesses as numberless and
noiseless as the drops of dew."

"Dear girls, what have I ever done, that you should love me so?" cried
Nan, with happy wonderment, as the tall heads, black and golden, bent
to meet the lowly brown one, and her sisters' mute lips answered her.

Then Laura looked up, saying, playfully,--

"Here are the good and wicked sisters;--where shall we find the
Prince?"

"There!" cried Di, pointing to John; and then her secret went off like
a rocket; for, with her old impetuosity, she said,--

"I have found you out, John, and am ashamed to look you in the face,
remembering the past. Girls, you know, when father died, John sent us
money, which he said Mr. Owen had long owed us and had paid at last?
It was a kind lie, John, and a generous thing to do; for we needed it,
but never would have taken it as a gift. I know you meant that we
should never find this out; but yesterday I met Mr. Owen returning
from the West, and when I thanked him for a piece of justice we had
not expected of him, he gruffly told me he had never paid the debt,
never meant to pay it, for it was outlawed, and we could not claim a
farthing. John, I have laughed at you, thought you stupid, treated you
unkindly; but I know you now, and never shall forget the lesson you
have taught me. I am proud as Lucifer, but I ask you to forgive me,
and I seal my real repentance so--and so."

With tragic countenance, Di rushed across the room, threw both arms
about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss
upon his cheek. There was a momentary silence; for Di finely
illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of
her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried
to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a
supplementary orb, owing to the dimness of her own. And Nan sat with
drooping eyes, that shone upon her work, thinking with tender pride