love her; and if she loved in the same degree, I would be more to her than
bitter memories. She would help me achieve a happy future for us both. As
it is, I am so pulled in different ways that I'm half insane," and with
contracted brow he sprang up and paced the floor.

But he could not hold to this mood long, and soon his face softened into
an expression of anxiety and commiseration. Resuming his chair his
thoughts ran on, "She isn't happy either. For some cause I reckon she
suffers more than I do. She looked pale to-day when I met her, and her
face was full of anxiety until she saw me, and then it masked all feeling.
She has worn that same cloak now for three winters. Great Heaven! if she
should be in want, and I not know it! Yet what could I do if she were? Why
will she be so proud and obdurate? I believe that gaunt, white-haired aunt
has more to do with her course than her own heart. Well, I can't sit here
and think about it any longer. If I see her something may become clearer,
and I must see her before I go North again."

Mara Wallingford's troubles and anxieties had indeed been culminating of
late. Almost her sole inheritance had been sadness, trouble and enmity.
Not only had her unhappy mother's history been kept fresh in her memory by
her great-aunt, Mrs. Hunter, but the very blood that coursed in her veins
and the soul that looked out from her dark, melancholy eyes had received
from that mother characteristics which it is of the province of this story
to reveal. To poor Mary Wallingford, the death of her father and of her
husband had been the unspeakable tragedy and wrong which had destroyed her
life; and the long agony of the mother had deprived her offspring of the
natural and joyous impulses of childhood and youth. If Mara had been left
to the care of a judicious guardian--one who had sought by all wholesome
means to counteract inherited tendencies, a most cheerful and hopeful life
would have been developed, but in this respect the girl had been most