heard footsteps coming along the road, she rushed
in that direction. She recognized John. So great was her excitement
that she could not utter one word. She clutched his arm in a
convulsive grasp. John said nothing. It was easier for him to be
silent. In fact he had something which was more eloquent than words.
He mournfully held out the basket and the hat.

In an instant Zillah recognized them. She shrieked, and fell
speechless and senseless on the hard ground.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN ASTOUNDING LETTER.

It needed but this new calamity to complete the sum of Zillah's
griefs. She had supposed that she had already suffered as much as she
could. The loss of her father, the loss of the Earl, the separation
from Mrs. Hart, were each successive stages in the descending scale
of her calamities. Nor was the least of these that Indian letter
which had sent her into voluntary banishment from her home. It was
not till all was over that she learned how completely her thoughts
had associated themselves with the plans of the Earl, and how
insensibly her whole future had become penetrated with plans about
Guy, The overthrow of all this was bitter; but this, and all other
griefs, were forgotten in the force of this new sorrow, which, while
it was the last, was in reality the greatest. Now, for the first
time, she felt how dear Hilda had been to her. She had been more than
a friend--she had been an elder sister. Now, to Zillah's affectionate
heart, there came the recollection of all the patient love, the kind
forbearance, and the wise counsel of this matchless friend. Since
childhood they had been inseparable. Hilda had rivaled even her
doting father in perfect submission to all her caprices, and
indulgence of all her whims. Zillah had matured so rapidly, and had
changed so completely, that she now looked upon her former willful
and passionate childhood with impatience, and could estimate at its
full value that wonderful meekness with which Hilda had endured her
wayward and imperious nature. Not one recollection of Hilda came to
her but was full of incidents of a love and devotion passing the love
of a sister.

It was now, since she had lost her, that she learned to estimate her,
as she thought, at her full value. That loss seemed to her the
greatest of all; worse than that of the Earl; worse even than that of
her father. Never more should she experience that tender love, that
wise patience, that unruffled serenity, which