her as regards me was
the coming visit of the Honorable Ernest Ferroll. She had heard from him
at San Francisco to the effect that he was on the point of starting for
the East, and that he took the liberty of forwarding to her his letters
of introduction as preliminary to paying his respects to her in person.
But on the particular evening of my arrival I found Aunt Agnes
oblivious to everything except a piece of information which, though far
from incredible to me, had evidently been to her like lightning from a
clear sky. The forbidding manner in which she received me led me to
fancy that I had displeased her; and remembering her previous discovery,
the awful suspicion that she had ferreted out my secret seized me for an
instant. But I was speedily reassured.

"I am glad you are here, Virginia, if only to read this. You were right,
child, after all; and I am an old fool, over whose eyes any one seems to
be able to pull the wool."

She spoke in her sternest tones, and held out to me a newspaper in which
was the announcement of the nuptials of Mr. Charles Liversage Spence and
Miss Lucretia Kingsley,--"no cards."

"Did you not know they were engaged?" I inquired.

"I know nothing but what you see there," replied my aunt; "and what is
more, I wish to know nothing further."

"They have acted for some time as if they were engaged. If they are in
love with each other it seems best that they should be married, after
all," I said, not caring to express my opinion as to the especial
fitness of the match with any greater emphasis.

"In love with each other! What right had she to fall in love with him, I
should like to know?" she exclaimed with indignation. "She a mere
disciple, a pupil, to fall in love with the master; aspire to be the
wife of a man as far superior to her as a planet to an ordinary star!
Bah! Fall in love with him! Tell _me_! It was bad enough when he fell in
love with you, Virginia; but this is fifty times worse, because she knew
better, and understood the value of celibacy to such a life. Her conduct
amounts to utter selfishness."

"I think Miss Kingsley has had designs on Mr. Spence for a long time.
That was why she was so bitter against me," I said.

"Would that you had married him, Virginia! I could have endured that.
But this is disgusting! I never wish to see either of them again,"
emphatically remarked Aunt Agnes.

It was useless to represent to her that Mrs. Spence was very much in
love with h