Such a request, coming from a comparative stranger, might very properly have been resented or lightly parried.  But Clara was not what would be called self-contained.  Her griefs seemed lighter when they were shared with others, even in spirit.  There was in her nature a childish strain that craved sympathy and comforting.  She had never known—­or if so it was only in a dim and dreamlike past—­the tender, brooding care that was her conception of a mother’s love.  Mrs. Hohlfelder had been fond of her in a placid way, and had given her every comfort and luxury her means permitted.  Clara’s ideal of maternal love had been of another and more romantic type; she had thought of a fond, impulsive mother, to whose bosom she could fly when in trouble or distress, and to whom she could communicate her sorrows and trials; who would dry her tears and soothe her with caresses.  Now, when even her kind foster-mother was gone, she felt still more the need of sympathy and companionship with her own sex; and when this little Mrs. Harper spoke to her so gently, she felt her heart respond instinctively.

“Yes, Mrs. Harper,” replied Clara with a sigh, “I am in trouble, but it is trouble that you nor any one else can heal.”

“You do not know, child.  A simple remedy can sometimes cure a very grave complaint.  Tell me your trouble, if it is something you are at liberty to tell.”

“I have a story,” said Clara, “and it is a strange one,—­a story I have told to but one other person, one very dear to me.”

“He must be dear to you indeed, from the tone in which you speak of him.  Your very accents breathe love.”

“Yes, I love him, and if you saw him—­perhaps you have seen him, for he has looked in here once or twice during the dancing-lessons—­you would know why I love him.  He is handsome, he is learned, he is ambitious, he is brave, he is good; he is poor, but he will not always be so; and he loves me, oh, so much!”

The other woman smiled.  “It is not so strange to love, nor yet to be loved.  And all lovers are handsome and brave and fond.”

“That is not all of my story.  He wants to marry me.”  Clara paused, as if to let this statement impress itself upon the other.

“True lovers always do,” said the elder woman.

“But sometimes, you know, there are circumstances which prevent them.”

“Ah yes,” murmured the other reflectively, and looking at the girl with deeper interest, “circumstances which prevent them.  I have known of such a case.”

“The circumstance which prevents us from marrying is my story.”

“Tell me your story, child, and perhaps, if I cannot help you otherwise, I can tell you one that will make yours seem less sad.”