I had no heart to discourage her. Warmly and truly as my wishes went with hers, I would not uproot all hope in my own mind. Time, I whispered to myself, has many changes, and so has the human heart. So I took the old lady's hand in mine and kissed it with affectionate reverence. She smiled upon me in her benign way, and called me "her dear young friend, her fair, sweet friend." Oh! I am getting to be a forlorn creature, or these words would never have swelled my heart with such throbs of gratitude. Have I indeed anything lovable or attractive about me which the old lady's deeper penetration has discovered, or is it only because I have been a little kind to her grandson? I wish it were possible to know about this, for since Mrs. Dennison has been at our house, I have begun to doubt and fear about myself in a way that never possessed me before. Her overpowering elegance has put down all my little quiet claims to notice so completely, that it seems as if I never should lift up my head again. No wonder I cried and kissed that soft hand like a child. People don't think how much we require praise and petting, at all stages of existence, or how much of childhood runs from the cradle to the grave in every human life. It was very foolish and romantic, but without at all knowing it, I had fallen on my knees by the old lady; and when she saw my eyes so full of tears, she smoothed my hair, and called me a good girl. With this I laid my head on her lap, and begged her to let me love her always, telling her that sometimes I was lonely for the want of a right to love anything. Then I grew ashamed and stood up, blushing through the tears that had betrayed me into such weakness, but her gracious look reassured me. CHAPTER XLI. OUT IN THE STORM. After this the younger Mrs. Bosworth came into the parlor, her eyes red with weeping, and looking weaker and more in affliction than ever. She had done everything, she said, dropping helplessly into a chair, and nothing would pacify him. There he was, trying to read over a letter that he kept hid away under the pillow, that shook and shook in his hands till the whole room was full of its rustling, and it made her so nervous she was afraid to stay alone with him--muttering, muttering as if he were angry with her, that had been a good mother to him all his days; no one could say to the contrary of that, she was sure. Another woman of a character so much above the level of that poor mother's, might have become impatient; but the old lady listened to her with great sympathy, excused her futile grief by half implied apologies, and finally succeeded in persuading her to lie down on the sofa, while we went up-stairs and watched by her son.