nces. 'There! he's
coming; I hear his step in the hall! Let me out this way!' and so
saying, she darted out of a door that led to the backstairs, and
disappeared.

'She has refused him!' said Mrs Gaskoin. 'I confess I am amazed.'

But Major Elliott met them with a smiling face. 'What has become of
Frances?' said he.

'She rushed in to us in a state of violent agitation, and begged we
would tell you that she is not well, and is gone to her room. I'm
afraid the result of your interview has not been what we expected.'

'On the contrary,' returned Major Elliott, 'you must both congratulate
me on my good-fortune.'

'Silly girl!' said Mr Gaskoin, shaking his friend heartily by the
hand. 'I see what it is: she is nervous about a little deception we
have been practising on you.'

'A deception!'

'Why, you see, my dear fellow, when I told Frances that you were
coming here, she objected to meeting you'----

'Indeed! On what account?'

'You have never suspected anything?' said Mr Gaskoin, scarcely
repressing his laughter.

'Suspected anything? No.'

'It has never by chance occurred to you that this bewitching niece of
mine is'----

'Is what?'

'Your betrothed lady, for example, Frances Seymour?'

Major Elliott's cheeks and lips turned several shades paler; but the
candles were not lighted, and his friends did not remark the change.

'Frances Seymour!' he echoed.

'That is the precise state of the case, I assure you;' and then Mr
Gaskoin proceeded to explain how the deception came to be practised.
'I gave into it,' he said, 'though I do not like jests of that sort,
because I thought, as my wife did, that you were much more likely to
take a fancy to each other, if you did not know who she was, than if
you met under all the embarrassment of such an awkward relation.'

During this little discourse, Major Elliott had time to recover from
the shock; and being a man of resolute calmness and great
self-possession--which qualities, by the way, formed a considerable
element in his attractions--the remainder of the evening was passed
without any circumstance calculated to awaken the suspicions of his
host and hostess, further than that a certain gravity of tone and
manner, when they spoke of Frances, led them to apprehend that he was
not altogether pleased with the jest that had been practised.

'We ought to have told him the moment we saw that he was pleased with
her; but, foolish child, she would not let us,' said