'Yes, when this has blown over, and he and his father have come to a full understanding. I have better faith in Cardie's good heart than that.' But Mildred felt more uneasy than her cheerful words implied. She had seen from the first that Richard had persistently misunderstood his sister; this fresh interference on her part, as he would term it, touching on a very sore place, would gall and irritate him beyond endurance. He had no conception of the amount of unselfish affection that was already lavished upon him; in fact he thought Olive provokingly cold and undemonstrative, and chafed at her want of finer feelings. It needed some sort of shock or revelation to enable him to read his sister's character in a truer light, and any kind of one-sided reconciliation would be a very warped and patched affair. Mildred's clear-sightedness was fully alive to these difficulties; but it was expedient to comfort Olive, who had relapsed into her former state of agitation. There was clearly no wrong in the case; want of tact and mistaken kindness were the heaviest sins to be laid to poor Olive's charge; yet Mildred now found her incoherently accusing herself of wholesale want of principle, of duty, and declaring that she was unworthy of any one's affections. 'I shall call you naughty for the first time, Olive, if I hear any more of this,' interrupted her aunt; and by infusing a little judicious firmness into her voice, and by dint of management, though not without difficulty, and representing that she herself was in need of rest, she succeeded in persuading the worn-out girl to seek some repose. Unwilling to trust her out of her sight, she made her share her own bed; nor did she relax her vigil until the swollen eyelids had closed in refreshing sleep, and the sobbing breaths were drawn more evenly. Once, at an uneasy movement, she started from the doze into which she had fallen, and put aside the long dark hair with a fondling hand; the moon was then shining from behind the hill, and the beams shone full through the uncurtained windows; the girl's hands were crossed upon her breast, folded over the tiny silver cross she always wore, a half-smile playing on her lips-- 'Cardie is always a good boy, mamma,' she muttered, drowsily, at Mildred's disturbing touch. Olive was dreaming of her mother. CHAPTER XIII A YOUTHFUL DRACO AND SOLON 'But thoughtless words may bear a sting Where malice hath no place, May wake to pain some secret sting Beyond thy power to trace. When quivering lips, and flushing cheek, The spirit's agony bespeak, Then, though thou deem thy brother weak, Yet soothe his soul to peace.'--S. A. Storrs.