ckly it would come on Florence, almost as a
crime, that she loved one who was set in opposition to her father, and
that her father knowing of it, must think of her in his solitary room as
the unnatural child who added this wrong to the old fault, so much wept
for, of never having won his fatherly affection from her birth. The next
kind word from Edith, the next kind glance, would shake these thoughts
again, and make them seem like black ingratitude; for who but she had
cheered the drooping heart of Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been
its best of comforters! Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them
both, feeling for the misery of both, and whispering doubts of her own
duty to both, Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the side
of Edith, endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret
in the mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.

One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence
was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by her
tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave him
new cause of dislike. If Florence had conceived the possibility of such
an effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would have felt,
what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl, how fast
and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it to the presence
of that higher Father who does not reject his children's love, or spurn
their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it was otherwise, and
that was well.

No word was ever spoken between Florence and Edith now, on these
subjects. Edith had said there ought to be between them, in that wise, a
division and a silence like the grave itself: and Florence felt she was
right.

In this state of affairs her father was brought home, suffering and
disabled; and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended by
servants, not approached by Edith, and had no friend or companion but Mr
Carker, who withdrew near midnight.

'And nice company he is, Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper. 'Oh, he's a
precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him come
to me whatever he does, that's all I tell him.'

'Dear Susan,' urged Florence, 'don't!'

'Oh, it's very well to say "don't" Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, much
exasperated; 'but raly begging your pardon we're coming to such passes
that it turns all the blood in a person's body into pins a