es. I heard
nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves,--I saw nothing but the
lonely magnificence of nature.

Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me
then what I did, or what became of me,--whether I was henceforth to be a
teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed
in one,--every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one
prayer,--"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"

Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang,
compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm
and desperate clench.

Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow
of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame,
shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old,--at that age
when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a
mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how
puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a
majestic semblance.

I was but a foolish child then,--what was I now? A child still, but
somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of
what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through
the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as
inaccessible.

At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets
gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed
passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest
thought,--"my mother!"

One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:--

"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and
humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O
spare my mother!"

God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate
of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.

CHAPTER VII.

"Gabriella,--is it you? How glad I am to see you!"

That clear, distinct, ringing voice!--I knew it well, though a year had
passed since I had heard its sound. The three years which made me, as I
said before, a _wiser child_, had matured my champion, the boy of
fifteen, into a youth of eighteen, a collegian of great promise and
signal endowments. I felt very sorry when he left the academy, for he
had been my steadfast friend and defender, and a great assistant in my
scholastic tasks. But after he entered a college,