The path of the girl who has wandered into those dazzling forbidden ways, and has "a gentleman coming after her," is full of thorns and difficulties, if also of pride and dazzling hopes. When Miss Prentice and her girls were about to sit down to their homely supper, the little maid-of-all-work mysteriously whispered to Lily that there was "one wanting to speak to her," an intimation which set the girl's heart once more beating. Who could it be? She was half disappointed, half relieved, to find that it was only an old woman, who gave her a little parcel and had nothing to say; but when the enclosure, being opened, was found to contain the locket and a letter, Lily's whole being was suddenly penetrated with excitement and surprise, and that delicious self-consciousness which is made up of vanity and delight and gratitude. She read only a few words in the letter, words which seemed to fill her veins with a subtle warmth, expanding her whole being, and thrust it into her pocket, that she might obey the call of Miss Prentice, hungry for her supper, who was calling at the foot of the stairs for Lily. Lily had run to her own room to see what the communication was. She came down-stairs so rapidly as to account for the colour in her cheeks; but how account for the dazzle in her eyes, which were so shining, yet misty with the excess of light in them? Miss Prentice could not tell what to make of her: "You're thinking of something?" she said, with quickly awakened suspicion. "Most folks think of something--except them that's stupid," was Lily's reply; and what answer could be made to it? Yet, though it was a truism, Miss Prentice's query had a just meaning; something that had nothing to do with the bread and cheese, something very different from Miss Musgrave's petticoat and Mrs Armstrong's new mantle, something that was beyond the dressmaking, was in Lily's eyes. "I wish that girl was with her mother. I wish she had never darkened my door. I wish she were safe away, and no harm done," Miss Prentice said to her forewoman. "Hoot! there's no harm in her," said that functionary, who did not think her employer knew what way to take a lass. But the dressmaker shook her head. "Them that have little harm in themselves are sometimes the cause of plenty of harm to others," she said, sententiously. But how could she let the mother know, when all she had to tell of was that dazzlement in Lily's eyes?