ed in obtaining a renewed lease,--a piece of news
well calculated to delight him, "if," as she said, "grand dreams of the
peerage might not have impaired his relish for the small hut at the foot
of Snowdon." She had just reached so far when a little chaise, drawn
by a mountain pony, drew up before the door, and a lady in a sort of
half-mourning dress got out and rang the bell. As the old lady rose to
admit her visitor,--for her only servant was at work in the garden,--she
felt no small astonishment. She was known to none but the peasant
neighborhood about her; she had not a single acquaintance in the country
with its gentry; and although the present arrival came with little
display, in her one glance at the figure of the stranger she saw her to
be distinctly of a certain condition in life.

It will conduce equally to brevity and to the interests of our story if
we give what followed in the words wherein Mrs. Conway conveyed it to
her son:--

"Little, I thought, my dear Charley, that I should have to
cross this already long letter,--little suspected that its
real and only interest was to have been suggested as I drew
to its close; and here, if I had the heart for it, were the
place to scold you for a pretty piece of mystification you
once practised upon me, when you induced me to offer the
hospitality of this poor cottage to an humble gentlewoman,
whose poverty would not deem even _my_ life an existence of
privation,--the sister of a fellow-soldier you called her,
and made me to believe--whose the fault I am not sure--that
she was some not very young or very attractive person, but
one whose claim lay in her friendless lot and forlorn
condition. Say what you will, such was my impression, and it
could have no other source than your description.

[Illustration: 244]

"Yes, Charley, my mind-picture was of a thin-faced, somewhat
sandy-haired lady, of some six or eight and thirty years,
bony, angular, and awkward, greatly depressed, and naturally
averse to intercourse with those who had not known her or
her better fortunes; shall I add that I assisted my
portrait by adding coarse hands, and filled up my
anticipation by suspecting a very decided Irish brogue? Of
course this flattering outline could not have been revealed
in a vision, and must have come from your hands, deny it
whenever and however you ma