t
from the men we meet round here. Oh yes, I fell in love with him at
once, and I have got deeper and deeper in love with him ever since,
and if he does not marry me I think that it will break my heart. There,
that's the truth, Jess dear," and she dropped her golden head on to her
sister's knees and began to cry softly at the thought.

But the sister sat there on the chair, her hand hanging idly by her
side, her white face set and impassive as that of an Egyptian Sphinx,
and the large eyes gazing far away through the window, against which the
rain was beating--far away out into the night and the storm. She heard
the surging of the storm, she heard her sister's weeping, her eyes
perceived the dark square of the window through which they appeared to
look, she could feel Bessie's head upon her knee--yes, she could see
and hear and feel, and yet it seemed to her that she was _dead_. The
lightning had fallen on her soul as it fell on the pillar of rock, and
it was as the pillar is. And it had fallen so soon! there had been
such a little span of happiness and hope! And so she sat, like a stony
Sphinx, and Bessie wept softly before her, like a beautiful, breathing,
loving human suppliant, and the two formed a picture and a contrast
such as the student of human nature does not often get the chance of
studying.

It was the eldest sister who spoke first after all.

"Well, dear," she said, "what are you crying about? You love Captain
Niel, and you believe that he loves you. Surely there is nothing to cry
about."

"Well, I don't know that there is," said Bessie, more cheerfully; "but I
was thinking how dreadful it would be if I lost him."

"I do not think that you need be afraid," said Jess; "and now, dear,
I really must go to bed, I am so tired. Good-night, my dear; God bless
you! I think that you have made a very wise choice. Captain Niel is a
man whom any woman might love, and be proud of loving."

In another minute she was in her room, and there her composure left her,
for she was but a loving woman after all. She flung herself upon her
bed, and, hiding her face in the pillow, burst into a paroxysm of
weeping--a very different thing from Bessie's gentle tears. Her grief
absolutely convulsed her, and she pushed the bedclothes against her
mouth to prevent the sound of it penetrating the partition wall and
reaching John Niel's ears, for his room was next to hers. Even in the
midst of her suffering the thought of the irony o