IT was impossible for such passionate interviews, brief though they were, to take place without leaving on the heart of a simple minded girl like Jenny Lawson, a deep impression.

New impulses were given to her feelings, and a new direction to her thoughts.

Nature told her that Mark Clifford loved her; and nothing but his cold disavowal of the fact could possibly have affected this belief.

He had met her, it was true, only three or four times; but their interviews during these meetings had been of a character to leave no ordinary effect behind.

So long as her eyes, dimmed by overflowing tears, could follow Mark's retiring form, she gazed eagerly after him; and when he was at length hidden from her view, she sat down to pour out her heart in passionate weeping.
Old Mrs.Lee, while she tenderly loved the sweet flower that had grown up under her care, was not, in all things, a wise and discreet woman; nor deeply versed in the workings of the human heart.
Rumor of Mark's wildness had found its way to the neighborhood of Fairview, and made an unfavorable impression.