to-morrow,’ said Alice; and Miss Hadley could not for shame ask the child, as she longed to do it, if this mysterious headache had come on after a visit from Laurie. ‘She has been working too hard,’ people who were more charitable concluded without question, and congratulated themselves that the pictures had been sent in, and that now, if ever, a painter might draw breath for a moment. But the padrona had not gone to bed. She heard them come and go away as she sat up in her room; and she heard Jane Hadley’s voice, and trembled lest that enterprising woman should seek her out even in her retirement. She could not have borne any keen eye upon her that night. Alice was different, to whom her mother was as far lifted above such vanities or such suspicions as if she had been a saint in heaven. ‘I think it would kill Alice!’ the mother said to herself with a shudder. And I believe she would rather have died herself than betray to her woman-child what had happened;--although nothing had happened, except that a foolish young man had mistaken himself and her, and put love in the place of friendship. But her thoughts were very soft towards poor Laurie,--poor, foolish fellow!--to throw away all his love and fresh heart and feelings upon a woman old enough to be his mother! Anybody else might have laughed at him for it, or despised him; but Mrs. Severn did not despise him. It went to her heart to think of that gift being thrown at her feet. And she was fond of the boy,--poor Laurie!--and if all the world scorned him for his mad, boyish fancy, at all events it was not her place to scorn.