and George are now with Miss Young, and she will take them all away.
She is very good: but I knew we might depend upon her--upon her heart,
and her forgiveness. Ah! you hear the poor child's voice. That shows
you the way."

Matilda was wandering, and, for the moment, talking very loud.
Something about grandmamma seeing her dance, and "When I am married,"
struck the ear as Hope entered her chamber, and entirely overset the
mother. Matilda was soon in a stupor again.

It was impossible to hold out much prospect of her recovery. It was
painful to every one to hear how Mrs Rowland attempted to bribe Mr
Hope, by promises of doing him justice, to exert himself to the utmost
in Matilda's behalf. He turned away from her, again and again, with a
disgust which his compassion could scarcely restrain. Philip was so far
roused by the few words which had been let drop below-stairs, as to
choose to hear what passed now, in the antechamber to the patient's
room. It was he who decidedly interposed at last. He sent his
brother-in-law to Matilda's bedside, dismissed Mr Walcot from the room,
and then said--

"A very few minutes will suffice, I believe, sister, to relieve your
mind: and they will be well spent. Tell us what you mean by what you
have been saying so often within this quarter of an hour. As you hope
in Heaven--as you dare to ask God to spare your child, tell us the
extent to which you feel that you have injured Mr Hope."

Hope sank down into the window-seat by which he had been standing. He
thought the whole story of his love was now coming out. He waited for
the first words as for a thunderclap. The first words were--

"Oh, Philip! I am the most wretched woman living! I never saw it so
strongly before; I believe I did it with an idea of good to you; but I
burned a letter of Margaret's to you."

"What letter? When?"

"The day you left us last--the day you were in the shrubbery all the
morning--the day the children found the shavings burnt."

"What was in the letter? Did you read it?"

"No; I dared not."

"What made you burn it?"

"I was afraid you would go to her, and that your engagement would come
on again."

"Then what you told me--what made me break it off--could not have been
true."

"No, it was not--not all true."

"What was true, and what was not?"

Mrs Rowland did not answer, but looked timidly at Mr Hope. Now was
the moment for him to speak.

"It was true," said he, "that, at th