had behaved forgetfully
and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an old
ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls, and
appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. "Father shall not always
want money," she said. She was particular in prescribing books for Rhoda
to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of history, and
poets, and quoted their verses. "For my darling will some day have a dear
husband, and he must not look down on her." Rhoda shook her head, full
sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical words
naturally. "Yes, dearest, when you know what love is," said Dahlia, in an
underbreath.

Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor
homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed
the notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was fixed
upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from London
placed her beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many chords. A
less subservient reader would have set them down as variations of the
language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word and
change of mood, from the, "I am unworthy, degraded, wretched," to "I am
blest above the angels." If one letter said, "We met yesterday," Rhoda's
heart beat on to the question, "Shall I see him again to-morrow?" And
will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and absorbed her
thoughts.

So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a
prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a
letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked "urgent and
private," she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the
surprise was a shock to her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal, and
walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.

The letter ran thus:--

"My Own Innocent!--I am married. We leave England to-day. I must not love
you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own now,
and I am his trustingly for ever. But he will let me give you some of
it--and Rhoda is never jealous. She shall have a great deal. Only I am
frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that
anything--everything he thinks right is right to me. I am not afraid to
think so. If I were to try, a cloud would come over me--it does, if only
I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw. I cannot