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128. She could not do me credit in society; and would not risk the chance of seeing me regret my folly, and feel ashamed of my hasty choice. She loved me too much to make me miserable for life; but would pray for me, night and day, as the dearest and truest friend she had ever found on earth, and would ask me to continue to love her as a sister, or daughter (if I preferred it), and believe her worthy of my affection. She had come to prove her gratitude to me and do her duty, not to entrap me into a marriage beneath me; and she wished me to believe it.

"All this, and more, she told me; then broke down wholly, and wept passionately, rejecting all my attempts to comfort her. She must, and would, go at once, now that this had happened; and she left me—half stunned, bewildered, and utterly downcast at this crushing blow—to make the arrangements for her journey back to Los Angeles.

"My other nurse came in soon after, with her eyes full of tears; but I could not talk, even to her, of the great sorrow which had come upon me; it was too sacred for others than Manuela and I to speak of, even though, as I suspected, she knew it all. That night I never closed my eyes in sleep. I formed a thousand plans, but abandoned each, in turn, as impracticable, feeling that, if Manuela had decided on her course, nothing would turn her from it. Manuela came in the afternoon, to bid me goodby. She was pale, sad, and silent. She took my hand; and I, no longer able to suppress my emotion, turned my head away, in speechless agony. She