"Lucy!" said Mabel.
"Ah, I know you are the best of human beings; but I do not know what you would have been, had you been brought up in such a school as I have."
"Scarcely four months have passed," returned Mabel, "since you spoke that thought before. You have not used events rightly, if you can say it sincerely now. Oh, why have you been so sorely tried," said she, placing her hand fondly on her head—"Why have you been wounded so severely, if not to purify you from the errors of the past? Might not those sad events be made fit answers to the excuse you then made for yourself?"
Lucy was going to reply, when a double knock at the hall door made her start and blush, and then she jumped up, her face all radiance, and hastily kissing Mabel's cheek, ran off to the drawing-room.
Once more alone, Mabel tried to occupy herself with the silk she held in her hand, but her heart was full, and tears silently stole down her cheeks, and fell upon her busy fingers.
Just then, Caroline returned, something had gone wrong in the singing lesson, and her face wore its natural frown, and her cheek its angry flush—she glanced impatiently at Mabel, and then stopping to warm herself by the fire, looked angrily from it to her.
"What! are you crying again?" she said, peevishly, for her temper had become almost insane from indulgence.
Mabel made no reply.
"I hope," continued her cousin, "you are not going to be always miserable; for poor mamma's sake, you should command your feelings."
Mabel raised her eyes and looked firmly at her, as she said, slowly—