ppiness."

"But my poor aunt was so anxious for you to have a home of your own,"
she said, sobbing, "and I do love you dearly. Now you will never marry.
I know you will not, if you can have neither Olivia nor me for your
wife."

"Very likely," I answered, trying to laugh away her agitation; "I shall
be in love with two married women instead. How shocking that will sound
in Guernsey! But I'm not afraid that Captain Carey will forbid me his
house."

"How little we thought!" exclaimed Julia. I knew very well what her mind
had gone back to--the days when she and I and my mother were furnishing
and settling the house that would now become Captain Carey's home.

"Then it is all settled," I said, "and I shall write to him by
to-night's post, inviting him back again--that is, if he really left you
last night."

"Yes," she replied; "he would not stay a day longer."

Her face had grown calm as we talked together. A scarcely perceptible
smile was lurking about her lips, as if she rejoiced that her suspense
was over. There was something very like a pang in the idea of some one
else filling the place I had once fully occupied in her heart; but the
pain was unworthy of me. I drove it away by throwing myself heart and
soul into the mystery which hung over the fate of Olivia.

"We have hit upon a splendid plan," said Jack: "Miss Carey will take
Simmons's cab to Bellringer Street, and reach the house about the same
time as I visit Foster. That is for me to be at hand if she should need
any protection, you know. I shall stay up-stairs with Foster till I
hear the cab drive off again, and it will wait for me at the corner of
Dawson Street. Then we will come direct here, and tell you every thing
at once. Of course, Miss Dobree will wish to hear it all."

"Cannot I go with Johanna?" she asked.

"No," I said, hastily; "it is very probable Mrs. Foster knows you by
sight, though she is less likely to know Johanna. I fancy Mrs. Wilkinson
will turn out to be Mrs. Foster herself. Yet why they should spirit
Olivia away into a French school, and pretend that she is dead, I cannot
see."

Nor could any one of the others see the reason. But as the morning was
fast waning away, and both Jack and I were busy, we were compelled to
close the discussion, and, with our minds preoccupied to a frightful
extent, make those calls upon our patients which were supposed to be in
each case full of anxious and particular thought for the ailments we
were