"'Now, what is it?' said I earnestly, for I saw it was no joke to poor Mary: her very lips were pallid and trembling, and her hand was pressed to her side as if to still the convulsive springing of her heart. "'I--I have been talking it over to William,' she said, in a thick, hasty voice; 'I told him I could go no further with this man--this no man--who is willing to take me, without so much as inquiring if I have a heart to bestow--but oh! oh, Susan--Randolph has gone!' she sobbed out in a complete passion of grief, that could not brook further concealment or restraint. "'But how do you know this?' I asked, after, as you may suppose, I had soothed and hushed her as far as I was able. "'William told me so himself. I told him I could not, would not marry Mr. Gardner--and he would not believe me--called me a foolish, nonsensical child, who didn't know my own mind--and at last, when nothing else would have any effect on his mind, I said--I said--ah! Susan, how hard it was and is to say it! I loved another!' "'And how then, my poor child?' "'Then--he just in his quiet, calm way, that kills one, you know--for it seems the death-blow to all sentiment--he said, 'Mary, if you mean young Randolph, whom I have sometimes met here, playing the lover, all I can say is, he is too discreet to contest the field, witness this note of farewell which was sent to my office this afternoon. He desires his very respectful compliments to you, Mary.' Would you believe it, Susan? I took that note--and read every word of it; yes, and I smiled, too, as I gave it back to him, as if it were the most indifferent thing in the world--though I felt then, as I do now, every line of it chilling my heart like ice.' "'Dear Mary,' I said, still very quietly, for she grew almost wild with excitement, 'how is this? Why has Randolph gone? have you had any quarrel?' "'Quarrel! God help you--no!--how should that be? don't I love the very dust he treads on!' she screamed out violently at last, and went into a hysteric fit. The sound of her maniacal voice brought her brother to the door with anxious inquiry, but as I told him Mary was a little over excited, and quiet would soon restore her, at my earnest request he retired. In a short time I was able, with bathing her head in cold water, and constantly soothing her with low murmuring tones of endearment, to see her sobbing herself into a troubled sleep, and as I looked on her beautiful face, pale as marble, and the black hair wetted and matted back from her fine brow, I felt that I saw a double victim to the cruel indifference of others, and the violent emotions of her own untutored nature." Alice and Louisa Stanwood had gazed steadily into the face of their grandmother, while in the relation of this true story, it lighted up with remembered emotion. "Poor, poor girl!" said they; "but where, then, was Mr. Gardener all this while? Surely he must have relented."