When Katie ceased to ask that Charley might be sent for, when she ceased to plead for his pardon and to praise his virtues, Mrs.Woodward knew well the cause of her silence.

It was not that others suspected her love, but that she had learned to suspect it herself.

It was not that she was ashamed of loving Charley, but that she felt at once that such love would distress her mother's heart.
As she sat there that night fingering her silken hair, she had asked herself whether in truth this man was master of her heart; she had probed her young bosom, which now, by a sudden growth, became quick with a woman's impulse, and she had owned to herself that she did love him.

He was dearer to her, she found, than all in the world beside.

Fondly as she loved her sister, sweet to her as were her mother's caresses, their love was not as precious to her as his might be.