yourself to Mr. Hartell at Richmond. Tell your own story. I will add a postscript. Perhaps he may yet ferret out the truth for you."
"Perhaps so, Mrs. Hyde; but it's little Eugene that I am anxious about. My conscience is clear, and that is comfort enough for me."
"The girl has the true secret of comfort," thought Mrs. Hyde. "As this is a broken day, Lucy," she said, "and I want you to get all troubles off your mind, let us send for that 'one friend' of yours, and acquaint him with your change of place." Lucy, at first, feared he would be instigated by the injustice she had suffered to some rash act; but the desire to communicate her good and evil fortune controlled her; and, with many thanks, she assented to Mrs. Hyde's proposal. Charles instantly answered to the summons, and in an hour's time had heard the whole story from Lucy's lips; and, with the impetuous resentment natural to his age, had vowed that "he would go instantly to Mrs. Hartell's—that he would shoot Adéle if she did not tell the whole truth—yes, he would blow her up sky-high." Lucy, after a while, convinced him that though this mode of proceeding might punish Adéle, it would not establish her innocence, nor extricate her from the labyrinth in which Adéle's arts had involved her. He still insisted that he could not go quietly back to his work while she was lying under such an imputation. "Why, Lucy," he said, "I positively had rather walk the fiery furnace with Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednego."
"Oh, don't talk so—please, Charles."
"It is foolish and wrong, I know, when you are
