judicious pleading--appealing equally to the exquisite
instincts of the loving woman and the thoughtful mind--that the
suffering girl was touched.

But she struggled long. She was unwilling to be won. She was vexed that
she was so weak: she was so weary of all struggle, and she needed
sympathy and love so much!

How many various influences had Edith to combat! how many were there
working in her favor! What a conflict was it all in the poor heart of
the sorrowful and loving Lucy!

Edith was a skilful physician for the heart--skilful beyond her years.

Love was the great want of Lucy.

Edith soon persuaded her that she knew how to supply it. She was so
solicitous, so watchful, so tender, so--

Suddenly the eyes of Lucy gushed with a volume of tears, and she buried
her face in Edith's bosom; and she wept--how passionately!--the sobbings
of an infant succeeding to the more wild emotions of the soul, and
placing her, like a docile and exhausted child, at the entire control of
her companion, even as if she had been a mother.

"Do with me as you will, Edith, my sister."

There was really no argument, there were no reasons given, which could
persuade any mind, having first resolved on the one purpose, to abandon
it for the other. How many reasons had Lucy for being firm in the first
resolution she had made!

But the ends of wisdom do not depend upon the reasons which enforce
conviction. Nay, conviction itself, where the heart is concerned, is
rarely to be moved by any efforts, however noble, of the simply
reasoning faculty.

Shall we call them _arts_--the processes by which Edith Colleton had
persuaded Lucy Munro to her purposes? No! it was the sweet nature, the
gentle virtues, the loving tenderness, the warm sympathies, the delicate
tact--these, superior to art and reason, were made evident to the
suffering girl, in the long interview in which they were together; and
her soul melted under their influence, and the stubborn will was
subdued, and again she murmured lovingly--

"Do with me as you will, my sister."

CHAPTER XLII.

"LAST SCENE OF ALL."

There was no little stir in the village of Chestatee on the morning
following that on which the scene narrated in the preceding chapter had
taken place. It so happened that several of the worthy villagers had
determined to remove upon that day; and Colonel Colleton and his family,
consisting of his daughter, Lucy Munro, and his future son-in-law,
having now