rise, and got my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.
"O!" she cried, despairingly. "What have I done! What have I done!"
"If you mean, Miss Havishain, what have you done to injure me, let me answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances.—Is she married?"
"Yes."
It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house had told me so.
"What have I done! What have I done!" She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. "What have I done!"
I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resent-
