One morning she was seated alone; she had laid the little Hugh down in his tiny bed for his morning’s sleep, and she was bending over her work with her accustomed close application. She thought of Mark; it was not possible to keep down thoughts of him. He never would come back to her--there seemed little doubt of that. How, indeed, she hardly hoped for it, hardly wished for it; for, despite her adoration of him---it was no less--she seemed to feel acutely disparity of their positions, and that it would have proved an effectual barrier to their peace if united. She thought of his parting words, and her eyes filled with tears. He would not bid her adieu--he felt their parting so deeply--yes, he loved her; she was sure of that, and an involuntary “God bless him,” escaped her lips as her head sank upon her bosom, and the fast falling tears bedewed the work in her trembling hands. “Sweet! sweet! sweet!” chirruped the little canary. “Dear little dick!” she thought, as the bird’s rapidly repeated call attracted her attention, “the little darling sees that I am sad and would comfort me.” She raised her eyes, and, lo, a woman stood before her. One glance--it was Helen Grahame. With an almost suffocating cry, Lotte rose to her feet. Helen clasped her hands and cowered before her. “Oh, Lotte, Lotte,” she murmured. Had she have spoken, and explained for a thousand years, she could not have so clearly convinced Lotte that her mysterious absence had been involuntary, as she did by the utterance of those two words. “I see it all! I see it all!” she exclaimed, with Jut quivering lips. “You are not to blame, Miss Grahame.” Helen, with a gasp of ecstacy, caught Lotte in her arms. She embraced her passionately. “Oh! Lotte, my sweet, faithful, enduring friend,” she sobbed, “what do I not owe to you? Only teach me how--in some way--I may try to repay you for all the suffering I have occasioned you; for your faithfulness; for your blessed charity; for your dear, dear womanly sympathies; and for that service, inestimable in its value, which--never, never fainting under its sharp exactions--you have rendered me. Oh! Lotte, my own darling Lotte, had you been my sister, a fond, unselfish sister, I might have expected some such ministering; but from you, on whom I had no claim--not even that of mere acquaintanceship--how can I sufficiently appreciate it?--how strive to evince to you the feeling it has raised up in my heart toward you. Heaven bless you, dearest! I will try to show you how I estimate you, for I am rich, Lotte, and--and I can look the world in the face now bravely--ay, like a queen--but not unless you share it with me. No, Lotte, my love, my truest, dearest friend! You shared with me all you had in the world when there was no prospect--ay! and no wish on your part that I should return it--and now I am wealthy again, you shall share it all with me. It is my husband’s wish--my husband, Lotte, my husband--my little child’s father, Lotte.”