Life had become significant and full of duty to her.

She delighted in the exercise of her intellectual powers, and liked the idea of the infinite amount of which she was ignorant; for it was a grand pleasure to learn--to crave, and be satisfied.

She strove to forget what had gone before this last twelve months.

She shuddered up from contemplating it; it was like a bad, unholy dream.

And yet, there was a strange yearning kind of love for the father of the child whom she pressed to her heart, which came, and she could not bid it begone as sinful, it was so pure and natural, even when thinking of it, as in the sight of God.