"No, no, dear Edith; you must not think of such a thing. Just close those blinds, and give me that fan, and I shall be very comfortable here. If possible let no one come in. If I could sleep, this paroxysm will pass over." "There, sleep if you can, dear Gabriella, and be bright for the evening party. You knew the dresses mamma gave us for the occasion, both alike. I could not think of wearing mine, unless you were with me,--and you look so charmingly in white!" Edith had such a sweet, coaxing way with her, she magnetized pain and subdued self-distrust. The mere touch of her gentle hand had allayed the fever of my brain, and one glance of her loving blue eye tempered the anguish of my spirit. She lingered, unwilling to leave me,--drew the blinds together, making a soft twilight amid the glare of day, saturated my handkerchief with cologne and laid it on my temples, and placing a beautiful bouquet of flowers, an offering to herself, on my pillow, kissed me, and left me. I watched the sound of her retreating footsteps, or rather of her crutches, till they were no longer heard; then burying my face in my pillow, the sultry anguish of my heart was drenched in tears. Oh! what a relieving shower! It was the thunder-shower of the tropics, not the slow, drizzling rain of colder climes. I wept till the pillow was as wet as the turf on which the heavens have been weeping. I clasped it to my bosom as a shield against invisible foes, but there was no _sympathy_ in its downy softness. I sighed for a pillow beneath whose gentle heavings the heart of human kindness beats, I yearned to lay my head on a mother's breast. Yea, cold and breathless as it was now, beneath the clods of the valley, it would still be a sacred resting-place to me. The long pressure of the grave-sods could not crush out the impression of that love, stronger than death, deeper than the grave. Had the time arrived when I might claim the manuscript, left as a hallowed legacy to the orphan, who had no other inheritance? Had I awakened to the knowledge of woman's destiny to love and suffer? Dare I ask myself this question? Through the morning twilight of my heart, was not a star trembling, whose silver rays would never be quenched, save in the nightshades of death? Was it not time to listen to the warning voice, whose accents, echoing from the tomb, must have the power and grandeur of prophecy? Yes! I would ask Mrs. Linwood for my mother's history, as soon as we returned to Grandison Place; and if I found the shadow of disgrace rested on the memory of her I so loved and worshipped, I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, to avoid that searching eye, which, next to the glance of Omnipotence, I would shun in guilt and shame.