from her arms as if he had received the thrust of a
dagger, and looked at her with great, startled, wondering eyes. She
recognized in an instant the awful indiscretion into which she had been
betrayed by her fierce and sudden anger, and threw herself upon her
knees before the boy, exclaiming:

"Harry, you must forgive me. I was beside myself with anger. I did not
know what I was saying. Indeed, I did not. Come to my lap again, and
kiss me, or I shall be wretched."

Harry still maintained his attitude and his silence. A furious word from
an angel would not have surprised or pained him more than this
expression of her anger, that had flashed upon him like a fire from
hell.

Still the lady knelt, and pleaded for his forgiveness.

"No one loves me, Harry. If you leave me, and do not forgive me, I shall
wish I were dead. You cannot be so cruel."

"I didn't know that ladies ever said such words," said Harry.

"Ladies who have little boys to love them never do," responded Mrs.
Dillingham.

"If I love you, shall you ever speak so again?" inquired Harry.

"Never, with you and God to help me," she responded.

She rose to her feet, led the boy to her chair, and once more held him
in her embrace.

"You can do me a great deal of good, Harry--a great deal more good than
you know, or can understand. Men and women make me worse. There is
nobody who can protect me like a child that trusts me. You can trust
me."

Then they sat a long time in a silence broken only by Harry's sobs, for
the excitement and the reaction had shaken his nerves as if he had
suffered a terrible fright.

"You have never told me your whole name, Harry," she said tenderly, with
the design of leading him away from the subject of his grief.

"Harry Benedict."

He felt the thrill that ran through her frame, as if it had been a shock
of electricity. The arms that held him trembled, and half relaxed their
hold upon him. Her heart struggled, intermitted its beat, then throbbed
against his reclining head as if it were a hammer. He raised himself,
and looked up at her face. It was pale and ghastly; and her eyes were
dimly looking far off, as if unconscious of anything near.

"Are you ill?"

There was no answer.

"Are you ill?" with a voice of alarm.

The blood mounted to her face again.

"It was a bad turn," she said. "Don't mind it. I'm better now."

"Isn't it better for me to sit in a chair?" he inquired, trying to
rise.

She tightened her gra