evening."

"Thank you," said Hester: "we would come with great pleasure, but that
we are engaged."

"Engaged, my dear! Margaret has just told us that you have no
engagement."

"So Margaret thought: but we are engaged. A friend of Mr Hope's is
coming to spend the evening, and I promised that we would be at home."

"Dear!" said Sophia; "and we had quite set our hearts upon your coming."

"Cannot you bring the gentleman with you, my dear? I am sure Mr Grey
will be happy to see any friend of Mr Hope's."

"Thank you; but he is coming on business."

"Oh, well! But Margaret can be spared, surely. I suppose you must stay
and make tea, my dear. It would not do, I know, for you to appear to
neglect your husband's country patients--particularly in the present
state of affairs. But Margaret can come, surely. Sydney shall step for
her, a little before six."

"Oh, yes," said Sophia; "Margaret can come. The gentleman can have no
business with her, I suppose."

Margaret was again puzzled with the fun that lurked in the eye and lip.
She had been passive till now; but seeing Hester's determination that
she should not go, she said very decidedly that she should much prefer
coming some evening when her brother and sister need not be left behind.

"Mrs Grey is not very well pleased," observed Margaret, when their
visitors were gone. "Could not you have been a little more explicit as
to this gentleman, whoever he may be?"

"I thought it better not to say more," said Hester, now unable to help
stealing a glance at her sister. "Our visitor is to be Mr Enderby. He
is so uneasy about his mother, that my husband is to see her this
afternoon; and Mr Enderby offers to come in the evening, to discuss her
case." After a slight pause, Hester continued--"Sophia was very
positive about its being impossible that our visitor could have any
business with you--was not she?"

"Oh, Hester!" said Margaret, imploringly, with her eyes full of tears.

"Well, well," said Hester, remembering how cruel this speech might
appear to her sister, "I ought not to speak to you from my own habitual
disbelief of Mrs Rowland's news. I will go away, dear; only just
saying, first, that I like Philip's looks very well. He does not seem
happier than he ought to be, while his mother is so ill: nor does he act
as if he felt he had neglected us, his old friends. As my husband says,
we must hear his own story before we judge him."

When she left the r