n those
clasped hands, while her slight frame shook with its contending
emotions. A few moments more and she raised her head. She was pale,
and her large, dark eyes dilated into fearful size. At length the big
drops came slowly down her cheek, and she was able to speak.

"No more, Angela, no more! You love me, I know; but what you have done
to day was no act of friendship. You have troubled the dark waters of
my soul until they have become a torrent over which I have no
control."

"And it is because I love you, Pauline, that I have made your future
life manifest to you. Do not seek to make a merit of obedience to your
proud mother's will. It is because you have been taught to fear her,
that you have consented to perjure yourself, and marry a man you
cannot love."

"For the love of heaven, spare me!" cried the girl, shrinking from her
friend's words, "Is it to triumph over me that you thus seek to move
me?"

Her friend gazed mournfully upon her, and rising from her seat, gently
put her arm around her.

"My poor Pauline! my dear Pauline!" murmured she, "I have been
cruel--forgive me."

Her answer was a fervent embrace--and throwing their arms round one
another, they wept in silence.

At this moment the door opened, and a lady entered. She was tall and
majestic, but there was an expression of pride and extreme hauteur on
her countenance. She wore a handsome but faded dress, and the somewhat
high-crowned cap bespoke a love of former fashions. She had a foreign
air, and when she addressed her daughter, it was in French.

"How is this!" cried she, angrily. "What scenes are these, Pauline? As
often as I enter your room I find you in tears. Is it to your advice,
Mademoiselle Percy, that my daughter owes her red eyes?"

Angela was about to reply, but Pauline waved her back.

"Is it, then, a crime to weep, mamma? If there were no tears, the
heart would break."

"It is a crime, Pauline, to resist the will of your mother, when she
has provided for your happiness in a manner suitable to your rank and
birth. It is a crime to break the fifth commandment, which tells you
to honor and obey your mother."

"And have I not done both," cried Pauline, indignantly. "Have you not
sold my happiness? Have you not bartered perhaps my eternal welfare,
that I might lay my aching head upon the downy pillows of the rich,
that you might see me a wretched slave, writhing under chains not the
less heavy because they are of gold?"

"Ha