She began to perceive that she was not free, that she was a part of a social machine, the power of which she had not at all apprehended, and that she was powerless in its clutch.  She might resist, but peace was gone.  She had heretofore found peace in obedience, but when she consulted her own heart she knew that she could not find peace in obedience now.  To a girl differently reared, perhaps, subterfuge, or some manoeuvring justified by the situation, might have been resorted to.  But such a thing never occurred to Evelyn.  Everything looked dark before her, as she more clearly understood her mother’s attitude, and for the first time in years she could do nothing but give way to emotions.

“Why, Evelyn, you have been crying!” exclaimed the governess, who came to seek her.  “What is the matter?”

Evelyn arose and threw herself on her friend’s neck for a moment, and then, brushing away the tears, said, with an attempt to smile, “Oh, nothing; I got thinking, thinking, thinking, and Don’t you ever get blue, McDonald?”

“Not often,” said the Scotchwoman, gravely.  “But, dear, you have nothing in the world to make you so.”

“No, no, nothing;” and then she broke down again, and threw herself upon McDonald’s bosom in a passion of sobbing.  “I can’t help it.  Mamma says Phil—­Mr. Burnett—­is never to come to this house again.  What have I done?  And he will think—­he will think that I hate him.”

McDonald drew the girl into her lap, and with uncommon gentleness comforted her with caresses.

“Dear child,” she said, “crosses must come into our lives; we cannot help that.  Your mother is no doubt doing what she thinks best for your own happiness.  Nothing can really hurt us for long, you know that well, except what we do to ourselves.  I never told you why I came to this country—­I didn’t want to sadden you with my troubles—­but now I want you to understand me better.  It is a long story.”

But it was not very long in the telling, for the narrator found that what seemed to her so long in the suffering could be conveyed to another in only a few words.  And the story was not in any of its features new, except to the auditor.  There had been a long attachment, passionate love and perfect trust, long engagement, marriage postponed because both were poor, and the lover struggling into his profession, and then, it seemed sudden and unaccountable, his marriage with some one else.  “It was not like him,” said the governess in conclusion; “it was his ambition to get on that blinded him.”

“And he, was he happy?” asked Evelyn.

“I heard that he was not” (and she spoke reluctantly); “I fear not.  How could he be?” And the governess seemed overwhelmed in a flood of tender and painful memories.  “That was over twenty years ago.  And I have been happy, my darling, I have had such a happy life with you.

“I never dreamed I could have such a blessing.  And you, child, will be happy too; I know it.”