," replied Beatrice; "thou wouldst not
be able to see it."

"Can't I see any thing you can?" demanded Eva, irritably.

"Why, no!" said Marie, with a fresh burst: "canst thou see thine own
face?"

"What a silly child, to make such a speech as that!"

"No, Eva," said Beatrice, trying to stifle her laughter, increased by
Marie's witticism: "the child is any thing but silly."

"Well, I think you are all very silly, and I shall not talk to you any
more," retorted Eva, endeavouring to cover her retreat; but she was
answered only by a third explosion from Marie.

Half an hour later, the Countess, entering her bed-chamber, was startled
to find a girl crouched down by the side of the bed, her face hidden in
the coverlet, and her sunny cedar hair flowing over it in disorder.

"Why, what--Magot! my darling Magot! what aileth thee, my white dove?"

Margaret lifted her head when her mother spoke. She had not been
shedding tears. Perhaps she might have looked less terribly wan and
woeful if she had done so.

"Pardon me, Lady! I came here to be alone."

The Countess sat down in the low curule chair beside her bed, and drew
her daughter close. Margaret laid her head, with a weary sigh, on her
mother's knee, and cowered down again at her feet.

"And what made thee wish to be alone, my rosebud?"

"Something that somebody said."

"Has any one been speaking unkindly to my little one?"

"No, no. They did not mean to be unkind. Oh dear no! nothing of the
sort. But--things sting--when people do not mean it."

The Countess softly stroked the cedar hair. She hardly understood the
explanation. Things of that sort did not sting her. But this she
understood and felt full sympathy with--that her one cherished darling
was in trouble.

"Who was it, Magot?"

"Do not ask me, Lady. I did not mean to complain of any one. And
nobody intended to hurt me."

"What did she say?"

"She said,"--something like a sob came here--"that I was one who could
settle to work, and get interested in other things, and forget a lost
love. But, she said, it would kill her in a month."

"Well, darling? I began to hope that was true."

"No," came in a very low voice. It was not a quick, warm denial like
that of Eva, yet one which sounded far more hopelessly conclusive. "No.
O Mother, no!"

"And thou art still fretting in secret, my dove?"

"I do not know about fretting. I think that is too energetic a word.
It would be better to s