er heart.

"How do I read them? I'll tell you. I read them as the index to a
whole volume of scheming selfishness. The man is unsound at the
core." Aunt Grace was tempted by the unruffled exterior of her niece
to speak thus strongly. Her words went deeper than she had expected.
Fanny's face crimsoned instantly to the very temples, and an
indignant light flashed in her soft blue eyes.

"Objects often take their colour from the medium through which we
see them," she said quickly, and in a voice considerably disturbed,
looking, as she spoke, steadily and meaningly at her aunt.

"And so you think the hue is in the medium, and not in the object?"
said Aunt Grace, her tone a little modified.

"In the present instance, I certainly do," answered Fanny, with some
ardour.

"Ah, child! child!" returned her aunt, "this may be quite as true in
your case as in mine. Neither of us may see the object in its true
colour. You will, at least, admit this to be possible."

"Oh, yes."

"And suppose you see it in a false colour?"

"Well?" Fanny seemed a little bewildered.

"Well? And what then?" Aunt Grace gazed steadily upon the
countenance of Fanny, until her eyes drooped to the floor. "To whom
is it of most consequence to see aright?"

Sharp-seeing, but not wise Aunt Grace! In the blindness of thy
anxiety for Fanny, thou art increasing her peril. What need for thee
to assume for the maiden, far too young yet to have the deeper
chords of womanhood awakened in her heart to love's music, that the
evil or good in the stranger's character might be any thing to her?

"You talk very strangely, Grace," said Mrs. Markland, with just
enough of rebuke in her voice to make her sister-in-law conscious
that she was going too far. "Perhaps we had better change the
subject," she added, after the pause of a few moments.

"As you like," coldly returned Aunt Grace, who soon after left the
room, feeling by no means well satisfied with herself or anybody
else. Not a word had been said to her touching the contents of
Fanny's letter, and in that fact was indicated a want of confidence
that considerably annoyed her. She had not, certainly, gone just the
right way about inviting confidence; but this defect in her own
conduct was not seen very clearly.

A constrained reserve marked the intercourse of mother, daughter,
and aunt during the day; and when night came, and the evening circle
was formed as usual, how dimly burned the hearth-fire, and how