Miss Wesden continued to rock herself to and fro and moan at frequent intervals, after Mattie had intruded so unceremoniously upon her sorrows. She had reached the hysterical stage, and there was no stopping the tears and the little windy sobs by which they were varied--and Harriet Wesden in tears, the girl whom Mattie had reverenced so long, was too much for our small heroine. "Oh! dear--what has happened?--shall I run and tell your father and mother?" "Oh! for goodness sake, don't think of anything of the kind!" cried the startled Harriet; "I--I--I shall be better in a minute. It's only a spasm or something--it's nothing that any one--can--help me--with!" "I know what it is," remarked Mattie, after a moment's reflection. "You--_you_ do, Mattie!" "It's the wind," was the matter-of-fact reply; "you've been eating a heap of nasty buns, and then come up here without your supper--and it's brought on spasms, as you say." "How ridiculous you are, child!" said this woman of seventeen, parting her fair hair back from her face, and making an effort to subdue her agitation; "don't you see that I am very, very miserable!" "In earnest?" "Are people ever really, truly miserable in fun, Mattie?" was the sharp rejoinder. "Not truly miserable, I should fancy. But you--oh! Miss Harriet, you miserable, at your age!" "Yes--it's a fact." "Perhaps you have been robbed," suggested the curious Mattie; "I know that they used to send them out from Kent Street to hang about the railway stations. Never mind, Miss Harriet, I have been earning money, lately; and if you don't want your father to know how careless you have been----" "Always unselfish--always thinking of doing some absurd action, that shall benefit any one of the name of Wesden. No, no, Mattie, it's not money, it's not that--that vulgar complaint you mentioned just now. Oh! to have one friend in the world in whom I could trust--in whom I could confide my misery!" "And haven't you _one_?" was the soft answer. Harriet looked up at the wistful face--so full of love and pity. "Ah! there's _you_--you mean. But you are a child still, and would never understand me. _You_ would never have sympathy with all that I have suffered, or keep my secret if you had." "What I could understand, I cannot say--I'm still hard at work, in over-time, at my lessons--but you may be sure of my sympathy, and of my silence. It's not that I'm so curious, Miss Harriet--but that I hope, when I know all, to be a comfort to you." Harriet shook her head despondently, and beat her tiny foot impatiently upon the carpet. Any one in the world to be a comfort to her, was a foolish idea, that only irritated her to allude to.