"Ever cared for me?" exclaimed Frances, "I tell you he loved me. Yes," added she passionately, "and his love shall return. Oh! I will enter heart and soul into it, he must--nay shall love me again. That you, meek and passionless as you are, love him, I wonder not; but that he should return your love? it must not! shall not! cannot be! I will move heaven and earth to aid me; I will humble my pride, sacrifice my ambition, all! all! I will suffer degradation, poverty, such as you complain of, all for him; and when at last he finds out, as he must, how I have loved him, knows all my heart's devotion, all its deep tenderness; I feel and know he will love me again as of old, as I know he once did. It cannot be that I should be doomed to a life of misery, without one bright ray to cheer the darkness of my lot, one bright spot to lighten my days." "It is a sad life," replied Amy, "the one you have pictured, and the only one I have to look forward to." "You!" cried Frances in the same passionate tone, "you! what matters it? Your love is but a child's love, your love is but a name. Oh, would," and she clasped her hands eagerly together, "would I could tell him--would he could know the value of the heart he rejects--what deep earnest love burns there for him. And he will know it, he shall know that the heart of proud Frances Strickland is all his own; then he will, he must, despise the love of such a weak, simple girl." "I love him not," replied Amy, while her face and even neck crimsoned with the words. "Talk not to me!" replied Frances, wildly. "I tell you it shall be so; the day shall come when he shall spurn you from him, cast away your love--scorn it--trample upon it. I tell you his love shall be mine, wholly, entirely mine, and none other's. You shall never be his. You think, perhaps, that the means to attain this end will be difficult and impossible. I tell you if there be means on earth to accomplish it--it shall be done. I will thwart all your fine plans; when you think yourself most secure, I will step in like a dark cloud, and hang about your path, hurling all your fond schemes to the ground. If he is not mine, he shall be no other's. Go! leave me." "No, Frances Strickland, I will not, cannot leave you with such hot, revengeful feelings warring in your heart. I would have you think otherwise than what you do before I go. You are speaking in haste and passion and are scarcely aware of what you are saying. When the present feelings which now agitate you pass away, cooler moments will succeed; you will then be sorry I am gone, and that you cannot recall what you have said." "Never! never!" cried Frances angrily and vehemently. "I will do as I have said, I will enter heart and soul into it, and since you have dared to love him, so I will ruin you if I can in his eyes."