“How kind of you to come,” said one of the sweetest voices she had ever heard.  “I have hoped and feared alternately, as to the result of my unceremonious request.  Pray make yourself perfectly at home.  I have wanted to get acquainted with you ever since I first saw you, but I go out so little, I was almost in despair, until I hit upon this method.  I believe I have not yet introduced myself.  I am Ulrica Hardyng, a lonely and sorrowing woman, with no one in the whole wide world to love or care for me, and I want to be your friend.”

She knelt down before the young girl, whom she had already seated, and gazed with dark, unfathomable eyes into the sweet face before her.

“Loyal and true,” she said, stroking the white hand softly.  “I want you to love me, Miss Graystone.  I knew at the first glimpse of your face, that you had suffered, poor child, and I felt for you from that moment; for who can sympathize with the afflicted so well as one who has drained to the dregs the bitter cup?”

“Oh, Madame!” said Clemence, impetuously, fascinated, as every one else had always been by the woman before her, “I shall be forever grateful for the smallest portion of your regard.  You cannot imagine how completely isolated I have been, during my brief sojourn here.”

“I believe that,” was the reply; “a girl of your intellect and refinement can have little in common with, these obtuse village people.  They cannot understand your feelings, and you cannot possibly sympathize with theirs.  Your former life must have been very different from this.  Tell me about it?”

It was a strange interview, but then, Ulrica Hardyng was a strange woman, and never did anything like anybody else.

“You will come again?” she said, that evening as they parted.  “Fate has been kinder to me than I deserve, and sent me a sweet consoler.  You and I have nothing to do with the idle forms of society.  We meet each other, and that is quite enough.”

“I will come again, kind friend,” Clemence answered gratefully, “at an early day; for now that I have once enjoyed the pleasure of your society, it would be hard to deny myself the privilege in future.”

After that they met nearly every day.

Mrs. Wynn had her say about it, too.

“So you’ve made the acquaintance of that stuck-up widow, have you?  I’ve a piece of advice for you.  You’re an unprotected girl, and might easily get talked about.  There’s something queer about this Mis’ Hardyng.  She don’t mingle with the rest of us, and I wouldn’t be too thick with her, if I was in your place.  Leastways, I won’t let my Rose make any advances towards an acquaintance.  Mind, I don’t say anything against her, but I do as I’d be done by, and give you a friendly warning, such as I’d have anybody do by a child of mine, if they was around the world.  For my part, I always consider it a safe plan to wait and see what other people think about them, before I make