"I'm not afraid--it is not that," said Harriet; "I only wish to know what you would think the best method of telling him all, and yet sparing him pain. I have been fancying that if _you_ hinted to him at first the truth----" "_I_ hint!" exclaimed Mattie, "not for the world. I'm only a servant here, and you might as well ask poor Ann Packet to hint the truth as me. I'm sorry--you will never know how sorry I am--that you two are going to break it off forever; but I should be more sorry still if you let to-night go by, and not try hard to face him." "Mattie, I will face him," said Harriet, with her lips compressed; "I will tell him all. After all, it was not an engagement, and I was as free as he to make my choice elsewhere if I preferred. I am not in the wrong to tell him that my girlish fancy was a mistake." "No--only in the wrong to keep the truth back." "You will not think that I have intentionally attempted to deceive poor Sidney, will you?" "God forbid, my dear." "Vain--frivolous, and weak--anything but cruel. Yes, I will tell him all when he comes back to-night. There is no use in delay." "Only danger," added Mattie, remembering her copy-book admonition; a copy which Sidney Hinchford had set her himself in the old days, when she was deep in text-hand. "And then when it is all told, and he knows that I am free, happiness will come again, I suppose. Heigho! I was very happy once." "Happiness will come again," said Mattie, more cheerfully, "to be sure." "Mattie, I have been trying very hard to think of Mr. Sidney, first of all; it is that trying which has made me ill. I know he loves me very much, and will never think of anybody else; and it is--it is hard upon him now!" "You must be very fond of this other one," said Mattie. "Is he handsome?" "Very." "And very fond of you, of course?" "Yes; but it is a struggle to keep his love back--I am cold to him--and I--I will _not_ listen to him, and so drive him to despair. Oh! I am a miserable wretch! I make everybody unhappy whom I meet." The weak girl burst into tears, and rocked herself to and fro on the chair before the fire. Mattie passed her arms round her neck and drew the pretty agitated face to her bosom, soothing it there as though she had been a mother troubled with love-sick daughters of her own. "It will soon be over now," Mattie said, when Harriet was more composed. "Try and be calm; think of what you shall say to poor Sidney, while I attend to the shop a bit." Mattie went into the shop, leaving Harriet Wesden with her chin clutched in both hands, looking dreamily at the fire. She was more composed now the whole truth had escaped her; she felt that she should be happy in time, after Sidney Hinchford had been told all, and that terrible ordeal of telling it had been gone through. One more scene, which had made her shudder to forestall by sober thought, and then the new life, brighter and rosier from that day!