I would not trust a mouse to a woman if a man's judgment could be had.

How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence. 'Let me speak to her.' 'Oh, no! I owe it to her, - but what will she say?' 'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!" ' 'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"

I have passed out of childhood into old age. I have had no youth - no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for me - for I shall never marry; and I anticipate cares and sorrows just as if I were an old woman, and with the same fearful spirit.

Mr Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything.

He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

Every mile was redolent of associations, which she would not have missed for the world, but each of which made her cry upon 'the days that are no more' with ineffable longing.

When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.