"I'm so lonely, Miggie. Come up stairs, won't you? They say I rave and tear my clothes, but I won't any more if you'll come. Tell Arthur so. He's good. He'll do what you ask him." "Poor little Nina," and Edith's tears fell fast upon the bit of paper. "I WILL see you to-day. Perhaps I may do you some good. Dear, unfortunate Nina!" There was a step upon the grass, and thrusting the note into her pocket, Edith turned to meet Arthur, who seemed this morning unusually cheerful and greeted her with something like his olden tenderness. But Edith was too intent upon Nina to think much of him, and after the lesson commenced, she appeared so abstracted that it was Arthur's turn to ask if she were offended. She had made herself believe she was, for notwithstanding Nina's assertion that "Arthur was good," she thought it a sin and a shame for him to keep any thing but a raving lunatic hidden away up stairs; and after a moment's hesitation she answered, "Yes, I am offended, and I don't mean to come here any more, unless---" "Edith," and the tone of Arthur's voice was fraught with pain so exquisite that Edith paused and looked into his face, where various emotions were plainly visible. Love, fear, remorse, apprehension, all were blended together in the look he fixed upon her. "You won't leave me," he said. "Any thing but that. Tell me my error, and how I can atone." Edith was about to speak, when, on the stairs without,--the stairs leading from the den--there was the patter of little feet, and a gentle, timid knock was heard upon the door. "It's locked--go back;" and Arthur's voice had in it a tone of command. "Mr. St. Claire," and Edith sprang from her chair, "I can unlock that door, and I will." Like a block of marble Arthur stood while Edith opened the oak- paneled door. Another moment and Nina stood before her, as she stands now first before our readers.