“Regina, you are a silly young thing, as ignorant of the ways of the world as an unfledged Java sparrow; but your heart is pure and true, and your affection is no adroitly set steel-trap, to spring unawares, and catch and cut me.  From the day when you first came among us with your sweet childish face and holy eyes, as much out of place in this house as Abel’s saintly countenance would be in Caina, I have watched and believed in you; and my wretched worldly heart began to put out fibres toward you, as those hyacinths there in your bulb-glasses grow roots.  Will it be safe for me to confide in you?  Can I trust you?”

“I think so.”

“Will you promise to keep secret whatever I may tell you?”

“Does it concern only yourself?”

“Only myself, and one other person whom you do not even know.  If I venture to tell you anything, you must give me your solemn promise to betray me to no human being.  I want your sympathy at least, for I feel desperate.”

Looking pityingly at her pale sorrowful face and quivering mouth, Regina drew closer to her.

“You may trust me.  I will never betray you.”

“Not to mamma, not to your guardian?  You promise?”

Her cold hand seized her companion’s, and wistfully her hollow eyes searched the girl’s face.

“I promise.”

“Would you help me to escape from the misery of this fine marriage?  Are you brave enough to meet your guardian’s black frown and freezing censure?

“I hope I am brave enough to do right; and you certainly would not expect or desire me to do anything wrong.”

Olga threw her arms around Regina, and leaned her head on her shoulder.  She seemed for a time shaken by some storm of sorrow that threatened to bear away all her habitual restraint, and Regina silently stroked her glossy red hair, waiting to hear some painful revelation.

“I think I never should have ventured to divulge my misery to you if you had not seen me yesterday, and abstained from all allusion to the matter when you saw that I boldly ignored it.  Do you suspect the nature of my errand to East ——­ Street?”

“I thought it possible that you were engaged in some charitable mission; at least I hoped so.”

“Charitable!  Then you considered the feigned sickness a ’pious fraud,’ and did not condemn me?  If charity carried me there, it was solely charity to my suffering starving heart, which cried out for its idol.  You have heard of Dirce and Damiens dragged by wild beasts?  Theirs was a mere afternoon airing in comparison with the race I am driven by the lash of your guardian, the spur of mamma, and the frantic wails of my famished heart.  I wish I could speak without bitterness, and mockery, and exaggeration, but it has grown to be a part of my nature, as features habituated to a mask insensibly assume to some extent its outlines.  I will try to put aside my flippant hollow attempts at persiflage,