So swiftly did one incident of change crowd upon another at this period of the lives which we fear we are but faintly sketching, that it seemed as if Fortune had arranged all the concomitant circumstances that were culminating in these few eventful days of autumn. Fortune, “the great commandress of the world,” had already played strange pranks with those two charming girls at Barton. Until lately their destinies had flowed on smoothly and in peace. They had grown up side by side,--one the mistress, the other the companion and friend,--and until now there had been no jealousy on either hand--until now Amy Somerton had been content with her lot. She had brooded over her lowly birth, in those hours when she had loved and dreamed about her love for Mr. Hammerton, but she had only seemed to look up the higher to her love. She had seen him as miners see the sky, far above her, and with hardly a beam of hope animating the thought that some day he might take her hand and raise her up, as the king selected the beggar maid in the poem. In those sunny days of doubt and hope and maiden admiration, she had been happy in her own quiet, dreamy fashion, contented with Lionel’s kind words and delicate attentions. He had never, perhaps, told her in so many words that he loved her, but there was that in his voice and manner, when he addressed her, which led her to believe that he took delight in her own undisguised admiration. He had signified his pleasure in her society in a thousand different ways, and for the time being this was enough to satisfy the heart-craving of Amy; but content to be humble, her pride nevertheless rose up against attack, with all the fierceness of injury. On that morning when she learnt that Lionel had left the country without one word at parting, she knew as if by instinct that her love was cast off. He must have known some time before he left that he was going, and yet he had not even deigned to say so. She knew how weak she had been; she knew how little she had striven to hide her love. Lionel Hammerton knew that she had loved him with all her heart and soul. She had not cared to disguise her feelings. She would have given up all the world for him, even like Goethe’s Marguerite. There was no sacrifice she would not have made, if sacrifice had been needed, at the feet of Lionel Hammerton; yet he had treated herself and her love with contempt and indifference.