Just for a day she was a beauteous sight, The world looked on to pity and admire This modest little leaf, that in a night Had seemed to set the forest all on fire. And then--this victim of a broken trust A withered thing, was trodden in the dust. Mr. Laurence sat silent as if buried in deep thought, while she sang a few songs, and then, excusing himself on a plea of indisposition, retired to his room. "It is useless for Uncle to tell me he is not ill," Dolores remarked, after he had left them alone, "for I notice a great change in him since I last saw him. He looks years older, and he is in a state of great nervousness. I am alarmed about him." "He is a strange man, is he not?" mused Helena, "but I can not help thinking he would be happier and healthier if he did not live alone. If he had married when young, and was now surrounded by a nice family, how different all his ideas would be. Papa says a bachelor's blood turns to vinegar because he has no one to sweeten life for him." "But Uncle Laurence is not a bachelor," Dolores said. "He married a very beautiful girl when he was quite young." "Indeed! then he is a widower? And it was the loss of her, that made him so bitter! But I think it is lovely that he has been true to her memory. There is just romance enough about it to please me." "No, no!" interrupted Dolores, hastily, "you do not understand. He married her and worshiped her, with a young man's first poetic passion; they lived together two years, and then--and then, Lena, she ran off and left him, and he has never been the same man since." "Ran off and left him!" echoed Helena in shocked amazement, "why, was she homesick--or was he unkind to her? And did her parents take her back?" "No, she did not go home. She was--oh, Lena dear, you are too innocent to understand how wicked the world is. I know all about it, because Uncle has told me; he thinks it better for me to be forewarned since I may be left alone to defend myself. Lena, his wife was faithless, and his nearest friend false, and two homes were disgraced forever." "Oh!" was Helena's only response. She was puzzled and pained to find the world not all like the sweet and holy atmosphere of her own home. But she felt sure that Mr. Laurence's life was a great exception to the rule, which must be peace, harmony and purity in the domestic relations. As the two girls stood in the pale blue bower which was Dolores's apartment, disrobing for the night, Helena noticed a photograph album lying near at hand. "May I look at the pictures?" she asked, and as she turned the leaves, she uttered an exclamation of delight as her eyes fell on the photograph of a beautiful child, a boy seemingly four or five years old. "Oh, Dolores, what a cherub! who is this?" she asked. "He is a perfect beauty--and he has your lovely mouth too--is he a relative?" Dolores leaned over her shoulder and looked at the portrait.