My aunt
will be glad to hear of her, if we go home to-morrow.'

'Are you thinking of going home?' exclaimed Louis, joyfully coming to
life.

'Yes; but for a cause that will grieve you. Mrs. Ponsonby is worse,
and has written to ask me to come down.'

'Materially worse?'

'I fear so. I showed my aunt's letter to Hastings, who said it was the
natural course of the disease, but that he thought it would have been
less speedy. I fear it has been hastened by reports from Peru. She had
decided on going out again; but the agitation overthrew her, and she
has been sinking ever since,' said Lord Ormersfield, mournfully.

'Poor Mary!'

'For her sake I must be on the spot, if for no other cause. If I had
but a home to offer her!'

Louis gave a deep sigh, and presently asked for more details of Mrs.
Ponsonby's state.

'I believe she is still able to sit up and employ herself at times, but
she often suffers dreadfully. They are both wonderfully cheerful. She
has little to regret.'

'What a loss she will be! Oh, father! what will you do without her?'

'I am glad that you have known her. She has been more than a sister to
me. Things might have been very different, if that miserable marriage
had not separated us for so many years.'

'How could it have happened? How was it that she--so good and
wise--did not see through the man?'

'She would, if she had been left to herself; but she was not. My
mother discovered, when too late, that there had been foolish,
impertinent jokes of that unfortunate trifler, poor Henry Frost, that
made her imagine herself suspected of designs on me.'

'Mary would never have attended to such folly!' cried Louis.

'Mary is older. Besides, she loved the man, or thought she did. I
believe she thinks herself attached to him still. But for Mary's
birth, there would have been a separation long ago. There ought to
have been; but, after my father's death, there was no one to interfere!
What would I not have given to have been her brother! Well! I never
could see why one like her was so visited--!' Then rousing himself, as
though tender reminiscences were waste of time, he added, 'There you
see the cause of the caution I gave you with regard to Clara Dynevor.
It is not fair to expose a young woman to misconstructions and idle
comments, which may goad her to vindicate her dignity by acting in a
manner fatal to her happiness. Now,' he added, having drawn his moral,
'if we are to call o