“I have just left another of your patients.  Cornelia Graham has been worse than usual for a day or two.  Clara, I will put away my outdoor wrappings and be with you presently.”  She retired to her own room, and, leaning against the window, where the rain was now pattering drearily, she murmured faintly: 

“Will he always treat me so?  Have I lost my friend forever?  Once he was so different; so kind, even in his sternness!” A tear hung upon her lash, and fell on her hand; she brushed it hastily away, and stood thinking over this alienation, so painful and unnatural, when she heard her guardian close Clara’s door and walk across the hall to the head of the stairs.  She waited a while, until she thought he had reached his buggy, and slowly proceeded to Clara’s room.  Her eyes were fixed on the floor and her hand was already on the bolt of the door, when a deep voice startled her.

“Beulah!”

She looked up at him proudly.  Resentment had usurped the place of grief.  But she could not bear the earnest eyes that looked into hers with such misty splendor; and, provoked at her own emotion, she asked coldly: 

“What do you want, sir?”

He did not answer at once, but stood observing her closely.  She felt the hot blood rush into her usually cold, pale face, and, despite her efforts to seem perfectly indifferent, her eyelids and lips would tremble.  His hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and he spoke very gently.

“Child, have you been ill?  You look wretched.  What ails you, Beulah?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“That will not answer.  Tell me, child, tell me!”

“I tell you I am as well as usual,” cried she impatiently, yet her voice faltered.  She was struggling desperately with her own heart.  The return of his old manner, the winning tones of his voice, affected her more than she was willing he should see.

“Beulah, you used to be truthful and candid.”

“I am so still,” she returned stoutly, though tears began to gather in her eyes.

“No, child; already the world has changed you.”

A shadow fell over his face, and the sad eyes were like clouded stars.

“You know better, sir!  I am just what I always was!  It is you who are so changed!  Once you were my friend; my guardian!  Once you were kind, and guided me; but now you are stern, and bitter, and tyrannical!” She spoke passionately, and tears, which she bravely tried to force back, rolled swiftly down her cheeks.  His light touch on her shoulder tightened until it seemed a hand of steel, and, with an expression which she never forgot, even in after years, he answered: 

“Tyrannical!  Not to you, child!”

“Yes, sir; tyrannical! cruelly tyrannical!  Because I dared to think and act for myself, you have cast off—­utterly!  You try to see how cold and distant you can be; and show me that you don’t care whether I live or die, so long as I choose to be independent of you.  I did not believe that you could ever be so ungenerous!” She looked up at him with swimming eyes.  He smiled down into her tearful face, and asked: