though some
feeling had prevented her telling the servant so when the letter was
taken in. She went, with the baby in her arms, into the study, to see
whether Philip was visible in any part of the garden that could be seen
thence. But she stopped short of the window. The handwriting on the
address of the letter troubled her sight. More than half-persuaded, as
she was, of the truth of much that she had told her brother, strenuously
as she had nourished the few facts she was in possession of, till she
had made them yield a double crop of inferences, she was yet conscious
of large exaggerations of what she knew, and of huge additions to what
she believed to be probabilities, and had delivered as facts. There was
in that handwriting a prophecy of detection: and, like other cowards,
she began to tamper with her reason and conscience.

"There is great mischief in letters at such times," she thought. "They
are so difficult to answer! and it is so possible to produce any effect
that may be wished by them! As my husband was reading the other
day--`It is so easy to be virtuous, to be perfect, upon paper!' Nothing
that the girl can say ought to alter the state of the case: it can only
harass Philip's feelings, and perhaps cause all the work to be gone over
again. His letter was meant to be final, I am confident, from his
intending to go away this evening. There should have been no answer.
This letter is a pure impertinence, and ought to be treated as such. It
is a sort of duty to use it as it deserves. Many parents (at least I
know old Mr Boyle did) burn letters which they know to contain offers
to daughters whom they do not wish to part with. Mr Boyle had no
scruple; and I am sure this is a stronger case. Better end the whole
affair at once; and then Philip will be free to form a better
connection. He will thank me one day for having broken off this."

She carried the letter into the drawing-room, slowly contemplating it as
she went. She thought, for one fleeting instant, of reading it. She
was not withheld by honour, but by fear. She shrank from encountering
its contents. She glanced over the mantelpiece, and saw that the
lucifer-matches were at hand. To make the letter burn quickly, it was
necessary to unfold it. She put the child down upon the rug--a
favourite play-place, for the sake of the gay pink and green shavings
which, at this time of the year, curtained the grate. While baby
crawled, and gazed qu