“Good-bye, darling Meb,” said she.  “I shall come for you to visit us erelong.”  Turning to Nellie, she said, “Do take care of her health, which you know is now precious to more than one;” then in a whisper she added, “Remember that what I have told you is sacred.”

The next moment she was gone, and mechanically, Nellie returned to the parlor, together with Mabel, whose unusual buoyancy of spirits contrasted painfully with the silence and sadness which lay around her heart.  That night, Mr. Douglass had some business in the city, and the two girls were left alone.  The lamps were unlighted, for the full golden moonlight, which streamed through the window-panes, suited better the mood of Nellie, who leaning upon the arm of the sofa, looked listlessly out upon the deep beauty of the night.  Upon a little stool at her feet sat Mabel, her head resting on Nellie’s lap, and her hand searching in vain for another, which involuntarily moved farther and farther away, as hers advanced.

At length she spoke:  “Nellie, dear Nellie—­there is something I want so much to tell you—­if you will hear it, and not think me foolish.”

With a strong effort, the hand which had crept away under the sofa-cushion, came back from its hiding-place, and rested upon Mabel’s brow, while Nellie’s voice answered, softly and slow, “What is it, Mabel?  I will hear you.”

Briefly, then, Mabel told the story of her short life, beginning at the time when a frowning nurse tore her away from her dead mother, chiding her for her tears, and threatening her with punishment if she did not desist.  “Since then,” said she, “I have been so lonely—­how lonely, none but a friendless orphan can know.  No one has ever loved me, or if for a time they seemed to, they soon grew weary of me, and left me ten times more wretched than before.  I never once dreamed that—­that Mr. Livingstone could care aught for one so ugly as I know I am.  I thought him better suited for you, Nellie. (How cold your hand is, but don’t take it away, for it cools my forehead.”)

The icy hand was not withdrawn, and Mabel continued:  “Yes, I think him better suited to you, and when his mother told me that he loved me, and that he would, undoubtedly, one day make me his wife, it was almost too much for me to believe, but it makes me so happy—­oh, so happy.”

“And he—­he, too, told you that he loved you?” said Nellie, very low, holding her breath for the answer.

“Oh, no—­he never told me in words.  ’Twas his mother that told me—­he only acted!”

“And what did he do?” asked Nellie, smiling in spite of herself, at the simplicity of Mabel, who, without any intention of exaggerating, proceeded to tell what John Jr. had said and done, magnifying every attention, until Nellie, blinded as she was by what his mother had said, was convinced that, at all events, he was not true to herself.  To be sure, he had never told her he loved her in words; but in actions he had said it many a time, and if he could do the same with Mabel, he must be false either to one or the other.  Always frank and open-hearted herself, Nellie despised anything like deception in others, and the high opinion she had once entertained for John Jr., was now greatly changed.