ft home, and she naturally supposed that Miss Headworth was in great
danger. Your father was greatly displeased, and she has been much
overcome, and very unwell, but we hope by keeping her perfectly quiet
that worse consequences may be prevented. Your father desires you to
remain where you are for the present, as he will not have her disturbed
again. Your mother sends her love both to you and to your aunt, and
desires me to say that she will write in a day or two, and that she
thinks you had better not come back till she is better and your
father's vexation has diminished.

'I wish you had informed us of your intentions, as then we could have
ascertained the grounds of the report that terrified you so
strangely.--I remain your affectionate aunt,

JANE M. EGREMONT.'

'Poor mother! he has been sneering at us all in his dreadful cynical
way, and knocked her up into one of her awful headaches,' said Nuttie,
who felt extremely angered by the grave tone of rebuke in the letter,
and tossed it over to her aunt without absolutely reading it all. Miss
Headworth was a good deal distressed, and anxious to know what Mrs.
William Egremont meant; but Nuttie positively declared, 'Oh, it is her
headaches! You know she always had them more or less, and they have
grown a great deal worse since she has taken to sitting in that horrid,
stuffy, perfumy, cigar-ry room, and doesn't take half exercise enough.'

And when Miss Headworth showed herself much concerned about the state
of things, Nuttie coaxed her, and declared that she should fancy
herself unwelcome, and have to go and beg a lodging somewhere instead
of enjoying her reprieve. And Aunt Ursel was far less impervious to
coaxing than she used to be when she was the responsible head of a
boarding house. She did most thoroughly enjoy the affection of her
great niece, and could not persuade herself to be angry with her,
especially when the girl looked up smiling and said, 'If the worst came
to the worst and he did disinherit me, the thing would only right
itself. I always meant to give it back to Mark.'

No great aunt in the world could fail to admire the generous spirit of
the girl who came back from the great world of luxury, so loving and
happy in her humble surroundings. The only sighs were for poor Alice,
in the hands of a man of whom Miss Headworth knew so much evil. If she
were not wretched and a victim--and Nuttie did not thi