'Alice,  my  child,  you  are  unhappy,'  she  said;  'it  is  useless


354         HARRY  COVERDALE'S  COURTSHIP

to  attempt  to  conceal  it.  Come,  tell  me  what  it  is.  You  know
of  old  that  I  am  to  be  trusted,  and  who  so  fit  as  your  mother
to  confide  in? — who  so  well  able  to  sympathise  with— and
perhaps  to  counsel  you?'  As  she  spoke,  she  passed  her  arm
caressingly  round  Alice's  slender  waist,  and  drew  her  towards
her.  For  a  minute  or  so  Alice  submitted  passively  to  her
embrace,  then,  with  an  hysterical  sob,  she  flung  her  arms  round
her  and  burst  into  a  passion  of  tears.  Mrs  Hazlehurst  allowed
her  to  weep  in  silence,  until  the  violence  of  her  grief  had  in
some  measure  subsided,  then,  by  degrees,  drew  from  her  an
account,  at  first  broken  and  disjointed,  but  becoming  fuller
and  more  coherent  as  she  proceeded,  of  all  her  woes,  real  and
imaginary,  with  which  the  reader  is  already  acquainted.
