Her voice sank low, and she hid her weeping eyes on Lotte’s neck. What! not a word, Lotte--not one little word to say? No--not one! At another time, she would have pressed some composure into her service, had it been ever so small; now she could not keep back her deep emotion, nor enlist a word to express even one of the many thoughts crowding, crashing through her brain. Her whole frame appeared convulsed; she staggered as if she would sink to the seat, but Helen clung to her, sustained her, laid her weeping face upon her bosom. “Rest thou there, darling!” she murmured. “Oh, Lotte, I am so happy to hold you again in my arms--no more struggles with the world, Lotte; no more unthreading of the web of life with a threaded needle. Dry your tears, my own darling and true heart, for if one mortal can ensure another’s happiness, I will compass yours.” Happiness, and parted for ever from Mark! Lotte could not refrain weeping, and Helen, finding it was so, hushed her own quivering voice, and wiped the trembling lids of Lotte; and kissed her pale cheek and forehead, pressing her again and again to her heart. Lotte at length summoned her old strength of purpose, and putting down with a firm hand the uprising thoughts of her still desolate and lonely condition in life, she strove to obey Helen’s injunctions to light up her sweet pleasant eyes with a smile; and, after one or two efforts, she cleared her aching throat so as to speak. “In all sincerity,” she said, “I am happy, oh, very happy to see you again and to hear such glad tidings, but I--I am sure I ought not to be thus encircled by your kind arms. You overrate what I have done, and our stations----” Helen placed her hands over her mouth. “Do not pain my heart, Lotte; do not wound me. If you talk to me in that strain, I shall fear that the old contemptible pride I once possessed had made me act so as to cause you to believe that I am hollow and deceptive, and eaten up with a fatuity of which I have long known the worthlessness. You have taught me that difference of station is levelled by human worth--what do I say--oh, Lotte, no station is so high as that held by one in right of truth and honour and virtue. Station, Lotte! If it were of us two to kneel to the one most elevated and entitled to the exercise of a noble pride, it would be for me to bend my knee----” Lotte placed her hand before Helen’s mouth. “It is my turn now,” she said, with a playful smile--sad though its expression still was. “Pray, do not speak to me about myself,” she added, almost mournfully, “for, indeed, it makes me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable, but let us talk of him in search of whom, in spite of your tender and kind words to me, your anxious eyes are wandering--little pet.” “My boy! my dear, dear boy! where is he?” said Helen, with a spasmodic action of her throat, as she clutched Lotte’s shoulder. Lotte smiled again one of her old, sweet smiles.