But Paulina had a cross to bear far harder than any petty trials of the school-room—a cross all the sharper because she had brought it upon herself and her father and mother, who shared the burden with her. The affair with Doctor Butler had taken wing, as was to be expected, and the whole city of Bristol rang with the stories of Paulina's stolen interviews with him, at chapel and elsewhere, and of the attempt to introduce him into her room. Who had chattered in the last case, nobody knew. But the scandal had gone abroad, distorted and exaggerated in a hundred forms. Paulina, never stirred away from home, save under her mother's wing, and then only, to church, but even there she felt herself the mark for curious eyes and whispers, while her mother had to encounter condolences and questions from all her acquaintances. Moreover, Paulina was not safe even yet from persecution. It had indeed been found expedient for Doctor Butler to leave town, but the priests had no notion of giving up their victim so easily, and more than one letter had been conveyed to Paulina, now pitying her as a martyr under persecution, now threatening her as a relapsed heretic. Meantime, a cloud rested upon her reputation. None of her young friends visited her or invited her, and Lady Corbet was blamed for permitting her to take the charge of her young sisters. Her father had been furiously angry upon hearing the story, and, though he had been brought to say at last that he forgave her, he was hard and stern toward her, and showed her constantly that she was distrusted and watched. Her mother was kindness itself, but a heavy cloud of sadness rested upon her once cheery face, and her voice, when she spoke to Paulina, had a tone of grief and pity. All this was very hard to bear—far harder than the fasting, the lying upon the floor, and all the other penances Paulina had been accustomed to practise; harder than the being obliged to give her attention to her work and pick it out when it was wrong; than being reproved for stooping her shoulders or poking her chin, or having her shoes down at heel and her petticoats draggled. Nor was this the hardest, after all. It was with inexpressible bitterness that Paulina heard of Doctor Butler's attempt to enter her room, and of his departure from the city, and learned from the pain the news gave her that her affections were no longer in her own keeping. Any woman worthy of the name must feel a sensation of intensest shame and anguish, when she finds herself loving one who does not care for her, even though that one may be in every way worthy; and the shame is increased twofold if the object prove utterly base. This was Paulina's case. She loved Doctor Butler, and she knew him to be a base, bad man—one who had destroyed the peace and reputation of more than one woman, and who might, but for what seemed the special interference of Providence, have done the same for her.