And besides, old fool that I am, I fancied your proud heart wore a breastplate of mail, and after all it is only a foolish girl's heart like any other, and now in its twenty-first year has given its love to a man for the first time." But Paula interrupted her: "I love the traitor no more! No, I hate him, hate him beyond words! And the rest of them! I loathe them all!" "Alas! that it should be so!" sighed the nurse.

"Your lot is no doubt a hard one.

He--Orion--of course is out of the question; but I often ask myself whether you might not mend matters with the others.

If you had not made it too hard for them, child, they must have loved you; they could not have helped it; but ever since you have been in the house you have only felt miserable and wished that they would let you go your own way, and they--well they have done so; and now you find it ill to bear the lot you chose for yourself.

It is so indeed, child, you need not contradict me.