of public display her patroness had designed her; but she could and did hope for the best. In all her thoughts the image of Robert Darnley was not in her mind’s eye for any length of time; it frequently made its appearance, and as frequently it was dismissed; not in anger--not, or scarcely, in sorrow, but in resignation and philosophy. She had endeavoured to wean her mind from the thought of a fickle lover, without having recourse to hatred, reproach or resentment. She exercised great diligence to cultivate a degree of indifference, and she so far deceived herself as to fancy that she had succeeded. Youth never so thoroughly deceives itself as when it says, “I don’t care.” CHAPTER XII. Another day dawned upon the multitudinous interests and emotions of humanity. To the mind which can spare time from the intensity of its own feelings, and the selfishness of its own concerns, to think of others--to think, not merely to talk morality and sentiment about them, but to realise the emotions and agitations of thoughts which harass the human breast, there is in the thought of a day dawning in a great city a deep and serious fulness of interest. The sun’s first blush upon the mountains and woods and streams and spangled meadows, is poetical and pretty enough, but the same light beaming on the condensed and crowded habitations of men, brings to the mind far other thoughts, and excites widely different emotions. It awakens misery from its dreams of bliss, and guilt from its dreams of innocence, poverty from its dreams of wealth, and despair from its dreams of hope. Anxiety begins anew its busy work in the breast of the needy parent, and gnawing hunger oft reminds the sufferer of the opening of another day. Bitter are the feelings which morning ofttimes brings to the sons and daughters of poverty; but not to them alone are confined the agonizing throbs of the heart. There is among the inmates of those proud mansions which seemed built for festivity alone, and tenanted by luxury and repose, many, many a bitter pang. There is the thought of keener anguish than any mere physical privation or suffering can inflict, there are pangs of heart for which language has no words, and fancy no figures, there are fears and dreads of which the humbler sufferers of life’s ills have no conception. Not enviable were the feelings of our heroine on the first morning in which she woke in the great city.