 her cousin's friend.
Until she knew that some plans she might have dreamed of were impossible, and
that Warrington, reading her heart perhaps, had told his melancholy story to
warn her, she had not asked herself whether it was possible that her affections
could change, and had been shocked and scared by the discovery of the truth. How
should she have told it to Helen, and confessed her shame! Poor Laura felt
guilty before her friend, with the secret which she dared not confide to her;
felt as if she had been ungrateful for Helen's love and regard; felt as if she
had been wickedly faithless to Pen in withdrawing that love from him which he
did not even care to accept; humbled even and repentant before Warrington, lest
she should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or shown the preference which
she began to feel.
    The catastrophe which broke up Laura's home, and the grief and anguish which
she felt for her mother's death, gave her little leisure for thoughts more
selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief, the minor one was also
almost cured. It was but for a moment that she had indulged a hope about
Warrington. Her admiration and respect for him remained as strong as ever. But
the tender feeling with which she knew she had regarded him was schooled into
such calmness, that it may be said to have been dead and passed away. The pang
which it left behind was one of humility and remorse. »Oh, how wicked and proud
I was about Arthur,« she thought; »how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for
encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor little artless
creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen to another only too
eagerly; and would not pardon the change of feelings in Arthur, whilst I myself
was changing and unfaithful.« And so humiliating herself, and acknowledging her
weakness, the poor girl sought for strength and refuge in the manner in which
she had been accustomed to look for them.
    She had done no wrong; but there are some folks who suffer for a fault ever
so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk under crimes of
almost any weight, and poor Laura chose to fancy that she had acted in this
delicate juncture of her life as a very great criminal. She determined that she
had done Pen a great injury by withdrawing that love which, privately in her
mother's hearing,
