afraid Miss Edmonstone must be very ill, or something. Do you know,
ma'am, her bed has not been slept in all night?'

'You don't say so, nurse!'

'Yes, ma'am, Jane told me so, and I went to look myself. Poor child,
she is half distracted about Master Philip, and no wonder, for they were
always together; but I thought you ought to know, ma'am, for she will
make herself ill, to a certainty.'

'I am going to see about her this moment, nurse,' said Mrs. Edmonstone;
and presently she found Laura wandering up and down the shady walk, in
the restlessness of her despair.

'Laura, dearest,' said she, putting her arm round her, 'I cannot bear to
see you so unhappy.'

Laura did not answer; for though solitude was oppressive, every one's
presence was a burthen.

'I cannot think it right to give way thus,' continued her mother. 'Did
you really sit up all night, my poor child?'

'I don't know. They did so with him!'

'My dear, this will never do. You are making yourself seriously unwell.'

'I wish--I wish I was ill; I wish I was dying!' broke from Laura, almost
unconsciously, in a hoarse, inward voice.

'My dear! You don't know what you are saying. You forget that this
self-abandonment, and extravagant grief would be wrong in any one; and,
if nothing else, the display is unbecoming in you.'

Laura's over-wrought feelings could bear no more, and in a tone which,
though too vehement to be addressed to a parent, had in it an agony
which almost excused it, by showing how unable she was to restrain
herself, she broke forth:----'Unbecoming! Who has a right to grieve for
him but me?--his own, his chosen,--the only one who can love him, or
understand him. Her voice died away in a sob, though without tears.

Her mother heard the words, but did not take in their full meaning;
and, believing that Laura's undeveloped affection had led her to this
uncontrolled grief, she spoke again, with coldness, intended to rouse
her to a sense that she was compromising her womanly dignity.

'Take care, Laura; a woman has no right to speak in such a manner of a
man who has given her no reason to believe in his preference of her.'

'Preference! It is his love!--his love! His whole heart! The one thing
that was precious to me in this world! Preference! You little guess what
we have felt for each other!'

'Laura!' Mrs. Edmonstone stood still, overpowered. 'What do you mean?'
She could not put the question more plainly.

'What have I done?' cri