s is
very apparent, stands proudly erect, and looks not at her, but at
Desmond. The tears gather slowly in her eyes--tears come ever slowly to
those whose youth lies far behind--and fall upon the repentant sunny
head; but the owner shows no sign of forgiveness; yet I think she would
have dearly liked to take the sweet sinner in her arms, to comfort and
forgive her, but for the pride and wounded feeling that overmastered
her.

"Your presence here, sir, is an insult," she says to Desmond, meaning to
be stern; but her grief has washed away the incivility of her little
speech and has left it only vaguely reproachful. Desmond lowers his head
before her gaze, and refrains from answer or explanation. A great sorrow
for the defencelessness of _their_ sorrow has arisen in his breast for
these old aunts, and killed all meaner thoughts. I think he would have
felt a degree of relief if they had both fallen upon him, and said hard
things to him, and so revenged themselves in part.

Monica is sobbing bitterly. Not able to endure her grief, Desmond,
going even to the feet of Miss Priscilla, tries to raise her from the
ground. But she clings even more closely to Miss Priscilla, and so
mutely refuses to go to him.

A pang, a sudden thought, shoots through him, and renders him desperate.
Will they be bad to his poor little girl when he is gone? will they
scold her?

"Oh, madam," he says to Miss Priscilla, with a break in his voice,
"_try_ to forgive her; be gentle with her. It was all my fault,--mine
entirely. I loved her, and when she refused to hear me plead my cause,
and shrunk from me because of that unhappy division that separates my
family from yours, and because of her reverence for your wishes, I still
urged her, and induced her to meet me secretly."

"You did an evil deed, sir," says Miss Priscilla.

"I acknowledge it. I am altogether to blame," says Desmond, hastily.
"She has had nothing to do with it. Do not, I beseech you, say anything
to her when I am gone that may augment her self-reproach." He looks with
appealing eyes at Miss Blake, his hand on Monica's shoulder, who has her
face hidden in a fold of her aunt's gown.

"Sir," says Miss Priscilla, drawing herself up, with a touch of
old-world grandeur in her manner, but a sad tremulousness in her tone,
"my niece has been with us now for some time, and we have dared to hope
she has been treated in accordance with the great love we feel for her."

"The _great_ love,"