of
gaining her affections in time. I care not for the mere name,
unaccompanied by the feelings which make it so dear and holy."

One would have supposed that a remark like this, uttered in a calm, mild
tone, a tone of mingled dignity and affability, would have touched a
heart of only fifteen summer's growth, but Mittie knew not yet that she
had a heart. She had never yet really loved a human being. Insensible to
the sweet tendernesses of nature, it was reserved for the lightning bolt
of passion to shiver the hard, bark-like covering, and penetrate to the
living core.

She triumphed in the thought that in the struggle for power between her
step-mother and herself she had gained the ascendency, that she had
never yielded one iota of her will, never called her _mother_, or
acknowledged her legitimate and sacred claims. She began to despise the
woman, who was weak enough, as she believed, to be overruled by a young
girl like herself. But she did not know Mrs. Gleason--as a scene which
occurred just one year after her return will show.

Mittie was seated in her own room, where she always remained, save when
company called expressly to see her. She never assisted her mother
either in discharging the duties of hospitality or in performing those
little household offices which fall so gracefully on the young.
Engrossed with her books and studies, pursuits noble and ennobling in
themselves, but degraded from their high and holy purpose when
cultivated to the exclusion of the lovely, feminine virtues, Mittie was
almost a stranger beneath her father's roof.

The chamber in which she was seated bore elegant testimony to the
kindness and liberality of her step-mother--who, before Mittie's return
from school, had prepared and furnished this apartment expressly for her
two young daughters. As Mittie was the eldest, and to be the first
occupant, her supposed tastes were consulted, and her imagined wants all
anticipated. Mrs. Gleason had a small fortune of her own, so that she
was not obliged to draw upon her husband's purse when she wished to be
generous. She had therefore spared no expense in making this room a
little sanctum-sanctorum, where youth would delight to dwell.

"Mittie loves books," she said, and she selected some choice and elegant
works to fill the shelves of a swinging library--of course she must be
fond of paintings, and the walls were adorned with pictures whose gilded
frames relieved their soft, neutral tint.