ns felt with her and understood her. Eunice's sensitive nature
recoiled from a chance meeting with the wretch who had laid waste all
that had once been happy and hopeful in that harmless young life.

"Will you come with me to the part of the garden that I am fondest of?"
she asked.

I offered her my arm. She led me in silence to a rustic seat, placed
under the shade of a mulberry tree. I saw a change in her face as we sat
down--a tender and beautiful change. At that moment the girl's heart
was far away from me. There was some association with this corner of the
garden, on which I felt that I must not intrude.

"I was once very happy here," she said. "When the time of the heartache
came soon after, I was afraid to look at the old tree and the bench
under it. But that is all over now. I like to remember the hours that
were once dear to me, and to see the place that recalls them. Do you
know who I am thinking of? Don't be afraid of distressing me. I never
cry now."

"My dear child, I have heard your sad story--but I can't trust myself to
speak of it."

"Because you are so sorry for me?"

"No words can say how sorry I am!"

"But you are not angry with Philip?"

"Not angry! My poor dear, I am afraid to tell you how angry I am with
him."

"Oh, no! You mustn't say that. If you wish to be kind to me--and I am
sure you do wish it--don't think bitterly of Philip."

When I remember that the first feeling she roused in me was nothing
worthier of a professing Christian than astonishment, I drop in my own
estimation to the level of a savage. "Do you really mean," I was base
enough to ask, "that you have forgiven him?"

She said, gently: "How could I help forgiving him?"

The man who could have been blessed with such love as this, and who
could have cast it away from him, can have been nothing but an idiot.
On that ground--though I dared not confess it to Eunice--I forgave him,
too.

"Do I surprise you?" she asked simply. "Perhaps love will bear any
humiliation. Or perhaps I am only a poor weak creature. You don't know
what a comfort it was to me to keep the few letters that I received from
Philip. When I heard that he had gone away, I gave his letters the kiss
that bade him good-by. That was the time, I think, when my poor
bruised heart got used to the pain; I began to feel that there was one
consolation still left for me--I might end in forgiving him. Why do I
tell you all this? I think you must have bewitched me. I