inda--O anomaly of
human nature--silent and severe. Attributing this however to her very
natural regret at parting with Paula, he entered into all the
arrangements for their departure on the following morning without a
suspicion of the real state of her mind, nor was he undeceived until the
day was nearly over and they sat down to have a few minutes of social
conversation before the early tea.

They had been speaking on some local topic involving a question of right
and wrong, and Mr. Sylvester's ears were yet thrilling to the deep
ringing tones with which Paula uttered the words, "I do not see how any
man can hesitate an instant when the voice of his conscience says no. I
should think the very sunlight would daunt him at the first step of his
foot across the forbidden line," when Miss Belinda suddenly spoke up and
sending Paula out of the room on some trivial pretext, addressed Mr.
Sylvester without reserve.

"I have something to say to you, sir, before you take from my home the
child of my care and affection."

Could he have guessed what that something was that he should turn with
such a flush of sudden anxiety to meet her determined gaze.

"The rules of our life here have been simple," continued she in a tone
of voice which those who knew her well recognized as belonging to her
uncompromising moods. "To do our duty, love God and serve our neighbor.
Paula has been brought up to reverence those rules in simplicity and
honor; what will your gay city life with its hollow devices for pleasure
and its loose hold on the firm principles of life, do for this innocent
soul, Mr. Sylvester?"

"The city," he said firmly but with a troubled undertone in his voice
that was not unnoted by the watchful woman, "is a vast caldron of
mingled good and evil. She will hear of more wrong doing, and be within
the reach of more self-denying virtue, than if she had remained in this
village alone with the nature that she so much loves. The tree of
knowledge bears two kinds of fruit, Miss Belinda; would you therefore
hinder the child from approaching its branches?"

"No, sir; I am not so weak as to keep a child in swaddling-clothes after
the period of infancy is past, neither am I so reckless as to set her
adrift on an unknown sea without a pilot to guide her. Your wife--" she
paused and fixed an intent look upon the flames leaping before her. "Ona
is my niece," she resumed in a lower tone of voice, "and I feel entitled
to speak with free