text:  Who is this distinguished-looking young woman with her eyes drooping and the shadow of a dreadful shock yet fresh upon every feature? Who is the elderly lady with her eyes flashing fire? Who is the downcast child of sixteen? What is that torn paper lying at their feet? Who is the writer? Whom does the paper concern? Ah! if she if the central figure in the group--twenty-two at the moment when she is revealed to us--could on her happy birth-day at sweet seventeen have seen the image of herself five years onwards just as _we_ see it now would she have prayed for life as for an absolute blessing? or would she not have prayed to be taken from the evil to come--to be taken away one evening at least before this day's sun arose? It is true she still wears a look of gentle pride and a relic of that noble smile which belongs to _her_ that suffers an injury which many times over she would have died sooner than inflict