“Don’t even speak of it!” said Stella.  “I really know no life that I should not prefer to the life that my mother is enjoying at this moment.  What should I have done, Adelaide, if you had not offered me a happy refuge in your house? My ‘earthly Paradise’ is here, where I am allowed to dream away my time over my drawings and my books, and to resign myself to poor health and low spirits, without being dragged into society, and (worse still) threatened with that ‘medical advice’ in which, when she isn’t threatened with it herself, my poor dear mother believes so implicitly.  I wish you would hire me as your ‘companion,’ and let me stay here for the rest of my life.”

Lady Loring’s bright face became grave while Stella was speaking.

“My dear,” she said kindly, “I know well how you love retirement, and how differently you think and feel from other young women of your age.  And I am far from forgetting what sad circumstances have encouraged the natural bent of your disposition.  But, since you have been staying with me this time, I see something in you which my intimate knowledge of your character fails to explain.  We have been friends since we were together at school—­and, in those old days, we never had any secrets from each other.  You are feeling some anxiety, or brooding over some sorrow, of which I know nothing.  I don’t ask for your confidence; I only tell you what I have noticed—­and I say with all my heart, Stella, I am sorry for you.”

She rose, and, with intuitive delicacy, changed the subject.  “I am going out earlier than usual this morning,” she resumed.  “Is there anything I can do for you?” She laid her hand tenderly on Stella’s shoulder, waiting for the reply.  Stella lifted the hand and kissed it with passionate fondness.

“Don’t think me ungrateful,” she said; “I am only ashamed.”  Her head sank on her bosom; she burst into tears.

Lady Loring waited by her in silence.  She well knew the girl’s self-contained nature, always shrinking, except in moments of violent emotion, from the outward betrayal of its trials and its sufferings to others.  The true depth of feeling which is marked by this inbred modesty is most frequently found in men.  The few women who possess it are without the communicative consolations of the feminine heart.  They are the noblest—–­and but too often the unhappiest of their sex.

“Will you wait a little before you go out?” Stella asked softly.

Lady Loring returned to the chair that she had left—­hesitated for a moment—­and then drew it nearer to Stella.  “Shall I sit by you?” she said.

“Close by me.  You spoke of our school days just now Adelaide.  There was some difference between us.  Of all the girls I was the youngest—­and you were the eldest, or nearly the eldest, I think?”

“Quite the eldest, my dear.  There is a difference of ten years between us.  But why do you go back to that?”

“It’s only a recollection.  My father was alive then.  I was at first home-sick and frightened in the strange place, among the big girls.  You used to let me hide my face on your shoulder, and tell me stories.  May I hide in the old way and tell my story?”