Anything further removed from the typical idea of the Elysian Fields could scarcely be imagined than on such an afternoon. It was difficult, even for a light-hearted person, to maintain a uniform cheerfulness where damp exuded everywhere, and the moist thick air seemed to close round one in vaporous folds. Somewhere, no doubt, the sun was shining, and might possibly shine again; but it was hard to realize it--hard to maintain outward or inward geniality under such depressing circumstances. Fern had turned from the window with an involuntary shudder. Then she lighted her lamp, stirred the fire, and sat down to her embroidery. As her needle flew through the canvas her lips seemed to close with an expression of patient sadness. There were sorrowful curves that no one ever saw, for Fern kept all her thoughts to herself. Never since the night when she had sobbed out her grief on her mother's bosom, when the utterance of her girlish despair and longing had filled that mother's heart with dismay, never since then had Fern spoken of her trouble. "We will never talk of it again," she had said, when the outburst was over; "it will do no good;" and her mother had sorrowfully acquiesced. Mrs. Trafford knew that only time, that beneficent healer, could deaden her child's pain. Fern's gentle nature was capable of quiet but intense feeling. Nea's faithful and ardent affections were reproduced in her child. It was not only the loss of her girlish dreams over which Fern mourned. Her woman's love had unconsciously rooted itself, and could not be torn up without suffering. An unerring instinct told her that Erle had not always been indifferent to her; that once, not so very long ago, his friendship had been true and deep. Well, she had forgiven his fickleness. No bitterness rankled in her heart against him. He had been very kind to her; he would not wish her to be unhappy. But she was very brave. She would not look at the future. The cold blankness, the narrow groove, would have chilled her heart. She only took each day as it came, and tried to do her best with it. With her usual unselfishness she determined that no one else should suffer through her unhappiness. Her mother's brief hours of rest should be unshadowed. It was a pale little sunbeam whose smiles greeted her of an evening; but it was still a sunbeam. The sweet looks and words and loving attention were still always ready. As Nea watched her child her heart would swell with pride and reverence. She recognized the innate strength and power of self-sacrifice that Maurice had left her as his legacy. "Of all my children, Fern is most like her father," Mrs. Trafford would say; "she is stronger than she looks--she would rather die than tell me again that she is unhappy."