me, the
confidence of a brother. Margaret had for some months reposed upon the
possession of a brother: she was now to have the same privilege. She
made room upon the bench for her husband, and proposed to lose no time
in reading the letter together. But Hope did not sit down, though, from
his agitation, she would have supposed him glad of a seat. He said he
would read in the shrubbery, and walked slowly away, breaking the seal
as he went. Hester was rather disconcerted; but she suppressed her
disappointment, begged him to take advantage of the bench, and herself
retired into the orchard while he read his epistle. There, as she stood
apparently amusing herself by the pond, wiping away a tear or two which
would have way, she little imagined what agony her husband was enduring
from this letter, which she was supposing must make his heart overflow
with pleasure. The letter was half full of reply to Edward's account of
Margaret, in his epistle of last June--of raillery about her, of
intreaty that Edward would give him such a sister-in-law, and of
intimations that nothing could be more apparent than that the whole rich
treasure of his heart's love was Margaret's own. Hope's soul sickened
as he read, with that deadly sickness which he had believed was past:
but last June, with its delights and opening love, was too suddenly, and
too vividly, re-awakened in his memory and imagination. The Margaret of
yesterday, of last month, he trusted he had arrived at regarding as a
sister: not so the Margaret of last summer. In vain he repeated, again
and again, to himself, that he had expected this--that he always knew it
must come--that this was the very thing, and no more, that he had been
dreading for half a year past--that it was over now--that he ought to
rejoice that he held in his hand the last witness and reminder of the
mistake of his life. In vain did he repeat to himself these reasonable
things--these satisfactory truths. They did not still the throbbing of
his brain, or relieve the agony of his spirit;--an agony under which he
could almost have cursed the hilarity of his brother as levity, and his
hearty affection as cruel mockery. He recovered some breath and
composure when he read the latter half of Frank's volume of
communication, and, before he had finished it, the sound of distant
footsteps fell upon his excited ear. He knew they were coming--the
three who would be full of expectation as to what he should have