to be looking in an opposite direction, did not see the earnest look of scrutiny he gave her, scarcely heeding Juno, whose face was all ablaze with guilt as she returned his bow, and whose voice trembled as she spoke of him to Helen and his intended departure.  Helen observed the tremor in her voice, and pitied the girl whose agitation she fancied arose from the fact that her lover was so soon to go where danger and possibly death were waiting.  In Helen’s heart, too, there was a cutting pang whenever she remembered Mark, and what had so recently passed between them, raising hopes which now were wholly blasted.  For he was Juno’s, she believed, and the grief at his projected departure was the cause of that young lady’s softened and even humbled demeanor, as she insisted on Helen’s stopping at her house for lunch before going home.

To this Helen consented—­Juno still revolving in her mind how to return the letter, which grew more and more a horror to her.  It was in her pocket yet, she knew, for she had felt it there when, after lunch, she went to her room for a fresh handkerchief.  She would accompany Helen home, would manage to slip into the library alone, and put it partly under a book, so that it would appear to be hidden, and thus account for it not having been seen before; or better yet, she would catch it up playfully and banter Helen on her carelessness in leaving her love letters so exposed.  This last seemed a very clever plan, and with her spirits quite elated, Juno drove around with Helen, finding no one in the parlor below, and felicitating herself upon the fact that Helen left her alone while she ran up to Katy.

“Now is my time,” she thought, stealing noiselessly into the library and feeling for the letter.

But it was not there.  It was missing, gone, and no amount of search, no shaking of handkerchief, or turning of pocket inside out could avail to find it.  The letter was lost, and in the utmost consternation Juno returned to the parlor, still hunting for the letter, and appearing so abstracted as scarcely to be civil when Katy came down to see her; asking if she was going that night to Sybil Grandon’s, and talking of the dreadful war, which she hoped would not be a war after all.  Juno was too wretched to talk, and after a few moments she started for home, hunting in her own room and through the halls, but failing in her search, and finally giving it up, with the consoling reflection that were it found in the street, as seemed quite probable, no suspicion could fasten on her; and as fear of detection, rather than contrition for the sin, had been the cause of her distress, she grew comparatively calm, save when her conscience made itself heard and admonished confession as the only reparation which was now in her power.  But Juno could not confess, and all that day she was absent-minded and silent, while her mother watched her closely, wondering what connection, if any, there was between her burning cheeks and the letter she had