"No, indeed," exclaimed the dear girl, drawing her mother's face down to hers--"my whole heart is yours, _chere maman_, and yours it shall always be." With what rapture gleamed the mother's eyes, as she returned the daughter's fond caresses. Some day, dear reader, I may tell you what happened to Lillie Mason's heart, but now my thoughts are o'er-hung with the dark mantle of the past, and I can only think of the mother's former life. Agnes Howell was a beautiful girl--there was so much purity in her appearance. The gentle beam of her blue eye was angelic, and her auburn ringlets hung over her clear fair brow and soft cheek as if caressing that lovely face. Then she was such a contrast to her family--an only daughter among a troop of strong, stout clever brothers--merry healthy-minded boys were they, but the gentle Madonna sister in their midst seemed an "angel unawares." Agnes' mother was an excellent woman, strong-minded, pains-taking, but a little hard and obtuse in feeling. She no more understood the gentle spirit and deep heart-yearnings of the daughter God had given her than she did the mystery of life. She loved her with all the strength of her nature, but she made no companion of the quiet girl, and thought if she kept her wardrobe in good order, watched her general health, and directed her serious reading, she did all that was required of her. Agnes grew up a dreamer, an enthusiast; quiet and self-possessed her home training had made her, and a stranger would have wondered at the tide of deep feeling that ebbed and flowed within the breast of that gentle, placid girl. She shrunk from the rude _badinage_ of her boisterous brothers, and finding that little was required of her in the _heart-way_ from her matter-of-fact mother and good-natured, easy father, she lavished the wealth of her love upon an ideal. A woman soon finds, or fancies she finds, the realization of her ideal. Chance threw in Agnes' path one who was superior enough in mind and person to realize any image of a romantic girl's fancy.