"No one but Miggie. You MAY love her. You must love her, Arthur. She's so beautiful, so grand, why has she gone from Nina, I want her here, want her all the time;" and Nina's mood began to change. Tears filled her eyes, and burying her face in Arthur's bosom she begged him to go after Miggie, to bring her. back and keep her there always, threatening that if he did'nt "Nina would be bad." Tenderly, but firmly, as a parent soothes a refractory child, did Arthur soothe the excitable Nina, telling her Miggie should come again, or if she did not, they'd go up and see her. CHAPTER XVII. NINA AND MIGGIE. It would be impossible to describe Edith's feelings as she rode toward home. She knew Arthur had not told her the whole, and that the part omitted was the most important of all. What could it be? She thought of a thousand different things, but dismissed them one after another from her mind as too preposterous to be cherished for a moment. The terrible reality never once occurred to her, else her heart had not beaten as lightly as it did, in spite of the strange story she had heard. She was glad that she had met with Nina--glad that every obstacle to their future intercourse was removed--and while she censured Arthur much she pitied him the more and scolded herself heartily for feeling so comfortable and satisfied because he had ceased to love the unfortunate Nina. "I can't blame him for not wishing to be talked about," she said. "Shannondale IS a horribly gossipping place, and people would have surmised everything; but the sooner they know it now the sooner it will die away. Let me think. Who will be likely to spread the news most industriously?" Suddenly remembering Mrs. Eliakim Rogers, the busiest gossip in town, she turned Bedouin in the direction of the low brown house, standing at a little distance from the road, and was soon seated in Mrs. Eliakim's kitchen, her ostensible errand being to inquire about some plain sewing the good lady was doing for her, while her real object was to communicate as much of Arthur's story as she thought proper. Incidentally she spoke of Mr. St. Claire, and when the widow asked "What under the sun possessed him to live as he did," she replied by telling of NINA, his ward, who, she said, had recently come to Grassy Spring from the Asylum, adding a few items as to how Arthur chanced to be her guardian, talking as if she had known of it all the time, and saying she did not wonder that a young man like him should shrink from having it generally understood that he had a crazy girl upon his hands. He was very kind to her indeed, and no brother could treat his sister more tenderly than he treated Nina.