been
married a fortnight. It is hard, surely, after but two weeks' possession
of your wife, to appear before her in the character of an offender on
trial--and to find that an angel of retribution has been thrown into the
bargain by the liberal destiny which bestowed on you the woman whom you
adore!

They were all three at home on the Wednesday afternoon, looking out for
the postman.

The correspondence delivered included (exactly as Sir Patrick had
foreseen) a letter from Lady Lundie. Further investigation, on the
far more interesting subject of the expected news from Glasgow,
revealed--nothing. The lawyer had not answered Sir Patrick's inquiry by
return of post.

"Is that a bad sign?" asked Blanche.

"It is a sign that something has happened," answered her uncle. "Mr.
Crum is possibly expecting to receive some special information, and is
waiting on the chance of being able to communicate it. We must hope, my
dear, in to-morrow's post."

"Open Lady Lundie's letter in the mean time," said Blanche. "Are you
sure it is for you--and not for me?"

There was no doubt about it. Her ladyship's reply was ominously
addressed to her ladyship's brother-in-law. "I know what that means."
said Blanche, eying her uncle eagerly while he was reading the letter.
"If you mention Anne's name you insult my step-mother. I have mentioned
it freely. Lady Lundie is mortally offended with me."

Rash judgment of youth! A lady who takes a dignified attitude, in
a family emergency, is never mortally offended--she is only deeply
grieved. Lady Lundie took a dignified attitude. "I well know," wrote
this estimable and Christian woman, "that I have been all along regarded
in the light of an intruder by the family connections of my late beloved
husband. But I was hardly prepared to find myself entirely shut out
from all domestic confidence, at a time when some serious domestic
catastrophe has but too evidently taken place. I have no desire, dear
Sir Patrick, to intrude. Feeling it, however, to be quite inconsistent
with a due regard for my own position--after what has happened--to
correspond with Blanche, I address myself to the head of the family,
purely in the interests of propriety. Permit me to ask whether--under
circumstances which appear to be serious enough to require the recall of
my step-daughter and her husband from their wedding tour--you think it
DECENT to keep the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie entirely in the
dark? Pray consid