She had ruled, like a queen, in the midst of her companions; she had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved.  Now, she felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts she never had doubted.

Yet, the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the kind of spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death-wound, “It is not painful, Poetus.”  She did not blench—­she did not change countenance.  She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure.  She made remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes.

The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were freed from the restraints of the dining-room, they all ran off, gaily calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.

She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the floor in strong convulsions.  These had sometimes threatened her life, as a child, but of later years, she had outgrown them.  School-hours came, and she was not there.  A little girl, sent to her door, could get no answer.  The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open.  Bitter was their penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found her.  For some hours, terrible anxiety was felt; but, at last, nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being.  She made no reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but undiscerning comments of her teacher.  She did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in.  It was this thought which stung her so.  What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me.  Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts.  Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get.  And Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.

The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer.  Her gay freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention.  Her dress was uniform, her manner much subdued.  Her chief interest seemed now to lie in her studies, and in music.  Her companions she never sought, but they, partly from uneasy remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her continually.  And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only stain upon the history of Mariana.

They talked to her, as girls, having few topics, naturally do, of one another.  And the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a genius of discord among them.  She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy which a wise, true word from a third will often quench forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection, or sincere intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay.