th
her head bent down, as I have described. Then, she took the Doctor's
hand (he was sitting in the same attitude as when we had entered the
room), and pressed it to her breast, and kissed it. Mr. Dick softly
raised her; and she stood, when she began to speak, leaning on him, and
looking down upon her husband--from whom she never turned her eyes.

'All that has ever been in my mind, since I was married,' she said in a
low, submissive, tender voice, 'I will lay bare before you. I could not
live and have one reservation, knowing what I know now.'

'Nay, Annie,' said the Doctor, mildly, 'I have never doubted you, my
child. There is no need; indeed there is no need, my dear.'

'There is great need,' she answered, in the same way, 'that I should
open my whole heart before the soul of generosity and truth, whom, year
by year, and day by day, I have loved and venerated more and more, as
Heaven knows!'

'Really,' interrupted Mrs. Markleham, 'if I have any discretion at
all--'

('Which you haven't, you Marplot,' observed my aunt, in an indignant
whisper.) --'I must be permitted to observe that it cannot be requisite
to enter into these details.'

'No one but my husband can judge of that, mama,' said Annie without
removing her eyes from his face, 'and he will hear me. If I say anything
to give you pain, mama, forgive me. I have borne pain first, often and
long, myself.'

'Upon my word!' gasped Mrs. Markleham.

'When I was very young,' said Annie, 'quite a little child, my first
associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient
friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear
to me. I can remember nothing that I know, without remembering him. He
stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon
them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been
to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.'

'Makes her mother nothing!' exclaimed Mrs. Markleham.

'Not so mama,' said Annie; 'but I make him what he was. I must do that.
As I grew up, he occupied the same place still. I was proud of his
interest: deeply, fondly, gratefully attached to him. I looked up to
him, I can hardly describe how--as a father, as a guide, as one whose
praise was different from all other praise, as one in whom I could have
trusted and confided, if I had doubted all the world. You know, mama,
how young and inexperienced I was, when you presented him before me, of
a