"My dear," she said kindly, "I know well how you love retirement,

and how differently you think and feel from other young women of
your age. And I am far from forgetting what sad circumstances

have encouraged the natural bent of your disposition. But, since
you have been staying with me this time, I see something in you

which my intimate knowledge of your character fails to explain.
We have been friends since we were together at school--and, in

those old days, we never had any secrets from each other. You are
feeling some anxiety, or brooding over some sorrow, of which I

know nothing. I don't ask for your confidence; I only tell you
what I have noticed--and I say with all my heart, Stella, I am

sorry for you."
She rose, and, with intuitive delicacy, changed the subject. "I

am going out earlier than usual this morning," she resumed. "Is
there anything I can do for you?" She laid her hand tenderly on

Stella's shoulder, waiting for the reply. Stella lifted the hand
and kissed it with passionate fondness.

"Don't think me ungrateful," she said; "I am only ashamed." Her
head sank on her bosom; she burst into tears.

Lady Loring waited by her in silence. She well knew the girl's
self-contained nature, always shrinking, except in moments of

violent emotion, from the outward betrayal of its trials and its
sufferings to others. The true depth of feeling which is marked

by this inbred modesty is most frequently found in men. The few
women who possess it are without the communicative consolations

of the feminine heart. They are the noblest---and but too often
the unhappiest of their sex.

"Will you wait a little before you go out?" Stella asked softly.
Lady Loring returned to the chair that she had left--hesitated

for a moment--and then drew it nearer to Stella. "Shall I sit by
you?" she said.

"Close by me. You spoke of our school days just now Adelaide.
There was some difference between us. Of all the girls I was the

youngest--and you were the eldest, or nearly the eldest, I
think?"

"Quite the eldest, my dear. There is a difference of ten years
between us. But why do you go back to that?"

"It's only a recollection. My father was alive then. I was at
first home-sick and frightened in the strange place, among the

big girls. You used to let me hide my face on your shoulder, and
tell me stories. May I hide in the old way and tell _my_ story?"

She was now the calmest of the two. The elder woman turned a
little pale, and looked down in silent anxiety at the darkly

beautiful head that rested on her shoulder.
"After such an experience as mine has been," said Stella, "would

you think it possible that I could ever again feel my heart
troubled by a man--and that man a stranger?"

"My dear! I think it quite possible. You are only now in your
twenty-third year. You were innocent of all blame at that

wretched by-gone time which you ought never to speak of again.
Love and be happy, Stella--if you can only find the man who is

worthy of you. But you frighten me when you speak of a stranger.
Where did you meet with him?"

"On our way back from Paris."
"Traveling in the same carriage with you?"

"No--it was in crossing the Channel. There were few travelers in
the steamboat, or I might never have noticed him."

"Did he speak to you?"
"I don't think he even looked at me."

"That doesn't say much for his taste, Stella."
"You don't understand. I mean, I have not explained myself

properly. He was leaning on the arm of a friend; weak and worn
and wasted, as I supposed, by some long and dreadful illness.

There was an angelicsweetness in his face--such patience! such
resignation! For heaven's sake keep my secret. One hears of men

falling in love with women at first sight. But a woman who looks
at a man, and feels--oh, it's shameful! I could hardly take my

eyes off him. If he had looked at me in return, I don't know what
I should have done--I burn when I think of it. He was absorbed in

his suffering and his sorrow. My last look at his beautiful face
was on the pier, before they took me away. The perfect image of

him has been in my heart ever since. In my dreams I see him as
plainly as I see you now. Don't despise me, Adelaide!"

"My dear, you interest me indescribably. Do you suppose he was in
our rank of life? I mean, of course, did he look like a

gentleman?"
"There could be no doubt of it."

"Do try to describe him, Stella. Was he tall and well dressed?"
"Neither tall nor short--rather thin--quiet and graceful in all

his movements--dressed plainly, in perfect taste. How can I
describe him? When his friend brought him on board, he stood at

the side of the vessel, looking out thoughtfully toward the sea.
Such eyes I never saw before, Adelaide, in any human face--so

divinely tender and sad--and the color of them that dark violet
blue, so uncommon and so beautiful--too beautiful for a man. I

may say the same of his hair. I saw it completely. For a minute
or two he removed his hat--his head was fevered, I think--and he

let the sea breeze blow over it. The pure light brown of his hair
was just warmed by a lovely reddish tinge. His beard was of the

same color; short and curling, like the beards of the Roman
heroes one sees in pictures. I shall never see him again--and it

is best for me that I shall not. What can I hope from a man who
never once noticed me? But I _should_ like to hear that he had

recovered his health and his tranquillity, and that his life was
a happy one. It has been a comfort to me, Adelaide, to open my

heart to you. I am get ting bold enough to confess everything.
Would you laugh at me, I wonder, if I--?"

She stopped. Her pale complexionsoftly glowed into color; her
grand dark eyes brightened--she looked her loveliest at that

moment.
"I am far more inclined, Stella, to cry over you than to laugh at

you," said Lady Loring. "There is something, to my mind, very sad
about this adventure of yours. I wish I could find out who the

man is. Even the best description of a person falls so short of
the reality!"

"I thought of showing you something," Stella continued, "which
might help you to see him as I saw him. It's only making one more

acknowledgment of my own folly."
"You don't mean a portrait of him!" Lady Loring exclaimed.

"The best that I could do from recollection," Stella answered
sadly.

"Bring it here directly!"
Stella left the room and returned with a little drawing in

pencil. The instant Lady Loring looked at it, she recognized
Romayne and started excitedly to her feet.

"You know him!" cried Stella.
Lady Loring had placed herself in an awkward position. Her

husband had described to her his interview with Major Hynd, and
had mentioned his project for bringing Romayne and Stella

together, after first exacting a promise of the strictest secrecy
from his wife. She felt herself bound--doubly bound, after what

she had now discovered--to respect the confidence placed in her;
and this at the time when she had betrayed herself to Stella!

With a woman's feline fineness of perception, in all cases of
subterfuge and concealment, she picked a part of the truth out of

the whole, and answered harmlessly without a moment's hesitation.
"I have certainly seen him," she said--"probably at some party.

But I see so many people, and I go to so many places, that I must
ask for time to consult my memory. My husband might help me, if

you don't object to my asking him," she added slyly.
Stella snatched the drawing away from her, in terror. "You don't