CHAPTER X.—HOW LOTTE FULFILLED HER TRUST.
Among the faithless faithful only she,
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
Her loyalty she kept, her love, her zeal:
Nor number nor example with her wrought,
To swerve from truth or change her constant mind.
—Milton.
And now Lotte Clinton was again alone in the world—-again with her face confronting her situation, prepared to sustain her cross with the meek fortitude she had always hitherto displayed.
She had nourished in secret her hope that one day she should meet with some sound-hearted singleminded youth, who would love her for herself, and whom she should love, and heartily too, for the selfsame qualification. It was only the natural promptings of a young girl’s heart; it would, indeed, have been unnatural for her not to have entertained some such notion.