For some time after Phillida had left Mrs. Frankland resting on the lounge that lady had felt an additional exaltation in contemplating this new and admirable instance of faith and devotion--an instance that seemed to owe much to the influence of her own teachings. Her mind had toyed with it as a brilliant having many facets. She had unconsciously reduced it to words; she could only get the virtue out of anything when she had phrased it. Phillida she had abstracted into a "young woman of a distinguished family," "beautiful as the day," "who had all the advantages of high associations," and "who might have filled to the brim the cup of social enjoyment." The lover, whose name and circumstances she did not know, she yet set up in her mind as "an accomplished young man of splendid gifts and large worldly expectations." It would have been a serious delinquency in him had he failed to answer to this personal description, for how else could this glorious instance be rounded into completeness? Incapable of intentional misrepresentation, Mrs. Frankland could never help believing that the undisclosed portion of any narrative conformed to the exigencies of artistic symmetry and picturesque effect. She set the story of Phillida's sacrifice before her now in one and now in another light, and found in contemplating it much exhilaration--spiritual joy and gratitude in her phraseology. How charmingly it would fit into an address! But as the hours wore on the excitement of her oratorical effort subsided and a natural physical reaction began. Her pulses, which had been beating so strenuously as to keep her brain in a state of combustion, were now correspondingly below their normal fullness and rapidity, and the exhausted nerves demanded repose. It was at such times as these that Mrs. Frankland's constitutional buoyancy of spirit sank down on an ebb tide; it was at such times that her usually sunny temper chafed under the irritations of domestic affairs. On this evening, when the period of depression set in, Mrs. Frankland's view of Phillida's case suffered a change. She no longer saw it through the iridescent haze of excited fancy. She began to doubt whether it was best that Phillida should break with her lover for the mere sake of being a shining example. In this mood Mrs. Frankland appreciated for the first time the fact that Phillida could hardly feel the same exultation in slaughtering her affections and hopes that Mrs. Frankland had felt in advising such a course of spiritual discipline. Just a little ripple of remorse flecked the surface of her mind, but she found consolation in a purpose to make the matter right by seeing Phillida the next day and inquiring more fully into the matter. Her natural hopefulness came to her rescue, and Mrs. Frankland slept without disturbance from regrets.