“I know not what you would say, Marian, but your strange words awake strange thoughts within me! We have, indeed, been happy! fond, happy, innocent, dear sister—and I can see no cause why we should now be otherwise—I, at least, am still happy, Marian, unless it be to witness your wild sorrow; and, if I know myself, no earthly sorrow would ever make me wretched, much less repining or despairing.” “Yes, you—yes, you, indeed, may yet be happy—blessed with a cheerful home, a noble, gallant husband, and, it may be, sweet prattlers at your knee—but I, oh God!” and she again burst into a fierce agony of tears and sobbing. Her sister for a time strove to console her, but she soon found not only that her efforts were in vain, but that, so far as she could judge, Marian’s tears only flowed the faster, her sobs became more suffocating, the more she would have soothed them; when she became aware of this, then, she withdrew gradually her arms from her waist, and spoke to her in a calm melancholy voice, full at the same time of deep sadness, and firm decided resolution. “Marian,” she said, “I see, and how I am grieved to see it no words can possibly express, that you look not to me for sympathy or consolation—nay, more, that you shrink back from my caresses as if they were insincere or hateful. Your words, too, are so wild and whirling that for my life I cannot guess what is their meaning or their cause. I only can suspect, or, I should rather say, can only _dread_ that you have either suffered some very grievous wrong, or done some very grievous sin, and as I must believe the last impossible, my fears must centre on the first dark apprehension. Could you confide in me, I might advise, might aid, and could, at least, most certainly console you. Why you cannot, or will not trust me, _you_ can know only. Side by side have we grown up since we were little tottering things, guiding our weak steps hand in hand in mutual dependence, seldom apart, I might say _never_—for, now since you have been away, I have thought of you half the day, and dreamed of you all night, my earliest comrade, my best friend, my own, my only sister. And now we are two grown up maidens, with none exactly fit to counsel or console us, except ourselves alone—since it has pleased our Heavenly Father in his wisdom for so long to deprive us of our dear mother’s blessed guidance. We are two lone girls, Marian; and never yet, so far as I know or can recollect, have we had aught to be ashamed of, or that one should not have communicated to the other. And now there is not one thought in my mind, one feeling or affection in my heart, which I would hide from you, my sister. What, then, can be this heavy sin or sorrow which you are now ashamed or fearful to relate to one who surely loves you as no one else can do beneath the canopy of heaven? Marian, you must reply to me in full, or I must leave you till better thoughts shall be awakened in your