“Fredrich,” said she, almost tenderly, “forgive me, but I must tell you the truth, and it is best you should know the worst at once. Go and seek some one fairer and more worthy your love than I, and from my heart I will say Heaven bless you.” “Can you ask me to do that? can you bid my heart so soon forget its allegiance?” “Ah! but you would bid mine forget its own, and come to you,” she replied, smiling. He started at the reproof. “Forgive me,” he said, repentantly; “I am selfish in my sorrow. I accept my sentence, and will try to bear it patiently, and think myself blessed if I can but merit your friendship; and should you ever need a faithful friend, you have only to call upon Fredrich Weimher.” “Thank you, I will,” she said, frankly holding out her hand to him, while in her secret heart she honored him for his manly conduct. “And now,” she added, “would you like to see my hero as he was then?” She drew the hidden locket from its resting-place, touched the spring, and held it up before him. He looked—started—looked again. “Miss Dupont,” he exclaimed, “surely it cannot be—but it must be—it is one of the dearest friends I have! Robert Ellerton! strange I did not think before. Why, Dora, I know your boy husband—he and I have spent many an hour in hard study together, though he is younger, and I graduated a year ago. He is a splendid fellow, and worthy even of your priceless love.” She had listened in pale and silent amazement to his words, while she trembled in every nerve with joyous excitement, and now poured forth a perfect torrent of questions. And he gave her the whole story. When Robert Ellerton first entered the German institute he was a lonely, sorrowful boy, always pale and silent, but a perfect scholar, never knowing what the word failure meant. Fredrich Weimher, noble, kind-hearted, and tender, pitied the stranger so far from his native land, sought him out, and at once made friends with him. They were more like brothers than friends, and were scarcely ever separated until Fredrich graduated and started on his American tour. One thing alone Robert would never talk about, and that was his home affairs, seeming quite sensitive if the subject was even mentioned. That, and that alone, was the only thing in which Fredrich did not share his confidence. “Heaven bless you, Dora, my friend!” cried Weimher, as he concluded his recital, and smiling quite brightly. “I can give you up with one pang less, now that I know you belong to my dearest friend.” “Oh, Fredrich Weimher,” replied the delighted girl, “if I considered you my friend before, you are doubly so now. I only regret that I did not make a confidant of you sooner; it might have saved you pain, and given me much happiness to hear directly from one who is so dear to me. But I leave on the morrow, and must say farewell to you now and return to my guests, or I shall be missed.”