wing that love from him which he did not even
care to accept; humbled even and repentant before Warrington, lest she
should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or shown the preference
which she began to feel.

The catastrophe which broke up Laura's home, and the grief and anguish
which she felt for her mother's death, gave her little leisure for
thoughts more selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief the
minor one was also almost cured. It was but for a moment that she had
indulged a hope about Warrington. Her admiration and respect for him
remained as strong as ever. But the tender feeling with which she knew
she had regarded him, was schooled into such calmness, that it may be
said to have been dead and passed away. The pang which it left behind
was one of humility and remorse. "Oh, how wicked and proud I was about
Arthur," she thought, "how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him
for encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor,
little, artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen to
another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of feelings in
Arthur, whilst I myself was changing and unfaithful:" And so humiliating
herself, and acknowledging her weakness, the poor girl sought for
strength and refuge in the manner in which she had been accustomed to
look for them.

She had done no wrong: but there are some folks who suffer for a fault
ever so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk
under crimes of almost any weight; and poor Laura chose to fancy that
she had acted in this delicate juncture of her life as a very great
criminal. She determined that she had done Pen a great injury by
withdrawing that love which, privately in her mother's hearing, she had
bestowed upon him; that she had been ungrateful to her dead benefactress
by ever allowing herself to think of another or of violating her
promise; and that, considering her own enormous crimes, she ought to
be very gentle in judging those of others, whose temptations were much
greater, very likely, and whose motives she could not understand.

A year back Laura would have been indignant at the idea that Arthur
should marry Blanche: and her high spirit would have risen, as she
thought that from worldly motives he should stoop to one so unworthy.
Now when the news was brought to her of such a chance (the intelligence
was giv