The Maid of Maiden Lane

"You have given me no opportunity; and, as you know all, why should I say any more about it?"

"Cornelia, my dear companion, I fear you are inclined to concealment and to reticence, qualities a young girl should not cultivate--I am now speaking for dear Sister Maria Beroth--and I hope you will carefully consider the advantages you will derive from cultivating a more open disposition."

"You are making a mockery of the good Sisters; and I do not wish to hear you commit such a great fault. Indeed, I would be pleased to return to their peaceful care again."

"And wear the little linen cap and collar, and all the other simplicities? Cornelia! Cornelia! You are as fond as I am of French fashions and fripperies. Let us be honest, if we die for it. And you may as well tell me all your little coquetries with George Hyde; for I shall be sure to find them out. Now I am going home; for I must look after the tea-table. But you will not be sorry, for it will leave you free to think of--"

"Please, Arenta!"

"Very well. I will have 'considerations.' Good-bye!"

Then the door closed, and Cornelia was left alone. But the atmosphere of the room was charged with Arenta's unrest, and a feeling of disappointment was added to it. She suddenly realized that her lover's absence from the city left a great vacancy. What were all the thousands in its streets, if he was not there? She might now indeed remove her frame from the window; if Hyde was an impossibility, there was no one else she wished to see pass. And her heart told her the report was a true one; she did not doubt for a moment Arenta's supposition, that he had gone to Hyde Manor. But the thought made her lonely. Something, she knew not what, had altered her life. She had a new strange happiness, new hopes, new fears and new wishes; but they were not an unmixed delight; for she was also aware of a vague trouble, a want that nothing in her usual duties satisfied:--in a word, she had crossed the threshold of womanhood and was no longer a girl, "Singing alone in the morning of life, In the happy morning of life, and May."