e. "Keep your secret.
The time will come some day when you will be righted. Trust in God,
my child."

The time passed on, but Zillah was now a prey to this new trouble.
How could she live? She was penniless. Could she consent to remain
thus a burden on kind friends like these? These thoughts agitated her
incessantly, preying upon her mind, and never leaving her by night or
by day. She was helpless. How could she live? By what means could she
hope to get a living? Her friends saw her melancholy, but attributed
it all to the greater sorrows through which she had passed. Obed
Chute thought that the best cure was perpetual distraction. So he
busied himself with arranging a never-ending series of expeditions to
all the charming environs of Naples. Pompeii and Herculaneum opened
before them the wonders of the ancient world. Vesuvius was scaled,
and its crater revealed its awful depths. Baiae, Misenum, and
Puzzuoli were explored. Paestum showed them its eternal temples. They
lingered on the beach at Salerno. They stood where never-ending
spring abides, and never-withering flowers, in the vale of
Sorrento--the fairest spot on earth; best representative of a lost
Paradise. They sailed over every part of that glorious bay, where
earth and air and sea all combine to bring into one spot all that
this world contains of beauty and sublimity, of joyousness and
loveliness, of radiance and of delight. Yet still, in spite of all
this, the dull weight of melancholy could not be removed, but never
ceased to weigh her down.

At length Zillah could control her feelings no longer. One day,
softened by the tender sympathy and watchful anxiety of these loving
friends, she yielded to the generous promptings of her heart and told
them her trouble. "I am penniless," she said, as she concluded her
confession. "You are too generous, and it is your very generosity
that makes it bitter for me to be a mere dependent. You are so
generous that I will ask you to get me something to do. I know you
will. There, I have told you all, and I feel happier already."

As she ended a smile passed over the face of Obed Chute and his
sister. The relief which they felt was infinite. And this was all!

"My child," said Obed Chute, tenderly, "there are twenty different
things that I can say, each of which would put you perfectly at ease.
I will content myself, however, with merely one or two brief remarks.
In the first place allow me to state that you are not penni