atuary, can remove its
desolation. _Deep calleth unto deep_, and when no answer cometh, the
waves beat against the lonely strand and murmur themselves away.

I tried to check all selfish, repining feelings. I tried to keep from
envying Edith, but I could not.

"O that I, too, had a brother!"

Was the cry of my craving heart, and it would not be stilled. I wiped
away tear after tear, resolving each should be the last, but the
fountain was full, and every heaving sigh made it overflow.

At length I heard the sound of Edith's crutches on the stairs, faint and
muffled, but I knew it from all other sounds. She could mount and
descend the stairs as lightly as a bird, in spite of her infirmity.

"Ah! truant!" she cried, as she opened the door, "you need not think to
hide yourself here all night; we want you to come and help us to be
happy, for I am so happy I know not what to do."

Her eyes sparkled most brilliantly through those drops of joy, as
different to the tears I had been shedding as the morning dew is to
December's wintry rain.

"But what are you doing, Gabriella?" she added, sitting down beside me
and drawing my hand from my eyes. "In tears! I have been almost crying
my eyes out; but you do not look happy. I thought you loved me so well,
you would feel happy because I am so. Do you not?"

"You will hate me for my selfishness, dear Edith. I did think of you for
a long time, and rejoice in your happiness. Then I began to think how
lonely and unconnected I am, and I have been wicked enough to envy your
treasures of affection for ever denied to me. I felt as if there was no
one to love me in the wide world. But you have remembered me, Edith,
even in the depth of your joy, ingrate that I am. Forgive me," said I,
passing my arms round her beautiful white neck. "I will try to be good
after this."

She kissed me, and told me to bathe my eyes and come right down, her
mother said I must. Ernest had inquired what had become of me, and he
would think it strange if I hid myself in this way.

"And you have seen him, Gabriella," she cried, and her tongue ran glibly
while I plunged my face in a basin of cold water, ashamed of the traces
of selfish sorrow. "You have seen my own dear brother Ernest. And only
think of your getting the first glimpse of him! What _did_ you think of
him? What _do_ you think of him now? Is he not handsome? Is there not
something very striking, very attractive about him? Is he not different
from