She was surprised, and at first was inclined to be angry, but she had so little vindictiveness in her nature and was so gentle of disposition that her ill-temper was but the shadow of anger, and soon passed away.

Then, too, her good common sense, of which she had an ample fund, came to her help and told her that whatever I had done was for her own good.

So the rare smile, which was one of her greatest charms, came to her face, like the diaphanous glow of a good spirit, rested for a moment on her lips, mounted to her eyes and faded slowly away, as though it would linger a moment to ask my forgiveness.
"I am glad I witnessed the interview," said I, drawing her hand through my arm to reassure her, "for notwithstanding all that happened, I now feel sure you are to be trusted." "But am I ?" she asked, showing a self-doubt which I wished to remove.
"Yes, you will have no greater trial at court than the one through which you have just passed.

You have combated successfully not only your own love, but the love of the man you love." "Ah, Baron Ned, don't!" she exclaimed, in mild reproach, shrinking from the thought I had just uttered so plainly.
"It is always well to look misfortunes squarely in the face," I answered.
"It helps one to despise them.

The thing we call bad luck can't endure a steady gaze." "It will help me in one respect,--this--this--what has happened," she returned, hanging her head.
"In what way ?" I asked, catching a foreboding hint of her meaning.
She hesitated, but, after an effort, brought herself to say, "I shall never again have to combat my own heart, and surely that is the hardest battle a woman ever has to fight." "Because your heart is already full ?" I asked.
She nodded "Yes," her eyes brimming with tears.
Her heart was not only full of her first love, which of itself is a burden of pain to a young girl, but also it was sore from the grief of her first loss, the humiliation of her first mistake, and the pang of her first regret for what might have been.
"It will all pass away, Frances," I returned assuringly.
"Ah, will it, Baron Ned?
You know so much more about such matters than I, who know nothing save what I have learned within the last few weeks." "I feel sure it will," I answered.
"I wish I felt sure," she returned, trying to smile, but instead liberating two great tears that had been hanging on her lashes.
After pausing in thought a moment, she said: "But I believe I should despise myself were I to learn that what I have just done had been prompted by a mere passing motive.