“No,” said Ulrica Hardyng, coming forward, with an expression of contempt upon her fine features.  “I can’t say as I consider it so.  I can understand precisely the motive that induced that woman to plot this piece of mischief.  She meant to ruin you, Clemence, in the estimation of the whole community; in short, to brand you as dishonest.  If you had effected a sale of the article, without examining it closely, you would never have detected the proximity of this valuable ornament, and when it was called for, which would surely have occurred, you could not, as a matter of course, have produced it.  Do you not see the whole trap at a glance?”

“What have I not escaped?” ejaculated Clemence, pale with agitation.  “What motive could possibly have led a comparative stranger to act thus?”

“There are numberless reasons,” replied her friend.  “The woman had placed herself, to a certain extent, in your power, by her uncalled for revelations of their domestic affairs, and she wished to have something to hold as a rod over you.”

“Don’t you think it might have been an accident?” willing, as usual, to believe every one but herself in the right.

“No,” said Mrs. Hardyng, indignantly, “it was a premeditated act, as deliberate as it was infernal.  My innocent darling, God has protected you, and vanquished your enemy.”

“What base, designing people there are in the world,” sighed the girl, sinking down by the couch upon which her friend reclined, upon her return from a walk the next evening.  “You were right, Ulrica.  I read in that woman’s guilty face, to-night, the confirmation of my doubts.”

“She did not admit it?” said the other, starting up eagerly.

“Not in words, but her looks proclaimed her part in the transaction more eloquently than any form of speech.  She knew that I read her craven soul as I stood before her.”

“This is too much?” said Mrs. Hardyng, rising and pacing the floor in violent agitation.  “I will see to this matter myself, for it is too great an insult to be borne patiently without the charge of cowardice.”

A few days after, as Clemence was walking, with downcast eyes, in the direction of her friend’s residence, she met in the narrow pathway two gentlemen, one of whom raised his hat respectfully, and paused to speak with her.

It was Mr. Gilman, one of the school committee.  Clemence respected and venerated him, and had on many an occasion felt grateful that his influence was generously exerted in her behalf.

The gentleman paused now to say that he had nothing to do with her dismissal from school, having used every argument in her favor, in vain.  He concluded by professing himself more than satisfied with her services, and convinced of her ability as a teacher; desired her to refer to him for a recommendation to any situation that she might have in view.

Clemence thanked him gratefully, and walked on with a lightened heart.  She remembered, afterwards, that this gentleman’s companion had been introduced by the name of Burton.