sperity arid happiness. Misfortune makes people so bitter."

"That is the very thing that I'm afraid of," said Zillah,
despairingly. "And--oh dear, what _shall_ I do?"

"You must do one thing certainly, and that is write him about his
father. You yourself must do it, darling."

"Why, what do you mean? You were just now showing me that this was
the very thing which I could not do."

"You misunderstand me," said Hilda, with a smile. "Why, do you
really mean to say that you do not see how easy it is to get out of
this difficulty?"

"Easy! It seems to me a terrible one."

"Why, my darling child, don't you see that after you write your
letter I can _copy_ it? You surely have nothing so very private to
say that you will object to that. I suppose all that you want to do
is to break the news to him as gently and tenderly as possible. You
don't want to indulge in expressions of personal affection, of
course."

"Oh, my dearest Hilda!" cried Zillah, overjoyed. "What an owl I am
not to have thought of that! It meets the whole difficulty. I
write--you copy it--and it will be _my_ letter after all. How I could
have been so stupid I do not see. But I'm always so. As to any
private confidences, there is no danger of any thing of that kind
taking place between people who are so very peculiarly situated as we
are."

"I suppose not," said Hilda, with a smile.

"But it's such a bore to copy letters."

"My darling, can any thing be a trouble that I do for you? Besides,
you know how very fast I write."

"You are always so kind," said Zillah, as she kissed her friend
fondly and tenderly. "I wish I could do something for you; but--poor
me!--I don't seem able to do any thing for any body--not even for the
dear old Earl. What wouldn't I give to be like you!"

"You are far better as you are, darling," said Hilda, with perhaps a
double meaning in her words. "But now go and write the letter, and
bring it to me, and I will copy it as fast as I can, and send it to
the post."

Under these circumstances that letter was written.

The Earl lingered on in a low stage, with scarcely any symptoms of
improvement. At first, indeed, there was a time when he had seemed
better, but that passed away. The relapse sorely puzzled the doctor.
If he had not been in such good hands he might have suspected the
nurse of neglect, but that was the last thing that he could have
thought of Hilda. Indeed, Hilda had been so fearful of the Earl's
being neg