d always
declared that it should be so; and Dorothy, knowing this, confessed
to herself that she should have kept her heart under better control.
Thinking of these things, she went to the table, where paper and ink
and pens had all been prepared for her so prettily, and began her
letter to Brooke. "Dearest, dearest Brooke." But then she thought
that this was not a fair keeping of her promise, and she began again.
"My dear Brooke." The letter, however, did not get itself written
that night. It was almost impossible for her to write it. "I think it
will be better for you," she had tried to say, "to be guided by my
aunt." But how could she say this when she did not believe it? It was
her wish to make him understand that she would never think ill of
him, for a moment, if he would make up his mind to abandon her;--but
she could not find the words to express herself,--and she went, at
last, to bed, leaving the half-covered paper upon the table.

She went to bed, and cried herself to sleep. It had been so sweet
to have a lover,--a man of her own, to whom she could say what she
pleased, from whom she had a right to ask for counsel and protection,
a man who delighted to be near her, and to make much of her. In
comparison with her old mode of living, her old ideas of life, her
life with such a lover was passed in an elysium. She had entered from
barren lands into so rich a paradise! But there is no paradise, as
she now found, without apples which must be eaten, and which lead
to sorrow. She regretted in this hour that she had ever seen Brooke
Burgess. After all, with her aunt's love and care for her, with
her mother and sister near her, with the respect of those who knew
her, why should the lands have been barren, even had there been no
entrance for her into that elysium? And did it not all result in
this,--that the elysium to be desired should not be here; that the
paradise, without the apples, must be waited for till beyond the
grave? It is when things go badly with us here, and for most of us
only then, that we think that we can see through the dark clouds into
the joys of heaven. But at last she slept, and in her dreams Brooke
was sitting with her in Niddon Park with his arm tight clasped round
her waist.

She slept so soundly, that when a step crept silently into her room,
and when a light was held for awhile over her face, neither the step
nor the light awakened her. She was lying with her head back upon the
pillow, and