at, of course, you are the best judge for
yourself; but none of us here feel as some girls do, lost without
gentlemen to amuse them. We can get on very well by ourselves. Cannot
we, Joseph?"

And Josephine said gallantly, "Yes," but her heart was more rueful
than her voice, and she thought that some gentlemen were very
nice, and that Sebastian Dundas especially made the dull time pass
pleasantly.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHILD FINA.

Nothing surprised the North Astonians more than what it was the
fashion to call "the admirable manner in which Leam behaved to
the child Fina." If the world which praised her had known all the
compelling circumstances, would it have called her admirable then? Yet
beyond those natural promptings of remorse which forced her to do
the best she could for the child whom her fatal crime had rendered
motherless, Leam did honestly behave well, if this means doing irksome
things without complaint and sacrificing self to a sense of right. And
this was all the more praiseworthy in that sympathy of nature between
these two young creatures there was none, and the girl's maternal
instinct was not of that universal kind which makes all children
pleasant, whatever they may be. Hence, she did nobly when she did her
duty with the uncompromising exactness characteristic of her; but then
it was only duty, it was not love.

How should it be love? Her tenacity and reserve were ill matched with
Fina's native inconstancy of purpose and childish incontinence of
speech; her pride of race resented her father's adoption of a stranger
into the penetralia of the family; and to share the name she had
inherited from her mother with the daughter of that mother's rival
seemed to her a wrong done to both the living and the dead. Naturally
taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness
of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but
never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were
intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not
loving, and the people said rightly when they said she was admirable.

Her grave patience with the little one did more to open her father's
heart to her than did even her own wonderful beauty, which gratified
his paternal pride of authorship, or than her efforts after docility
to himself--efforts that would have been creditable to any one, and
that with her were heroic. For Mr. Dundas, being of those clinging,