e
tore open Mr. Johnson's--the date was a fortnight earlier than Miss
Monro's; he also expressed his wonder at not hearing from her, in reply
to his letter of January 9; but he added, that he thought that her
trustees had judged rightly; the handsome sum the railway company had
offered for the land when their surveyor decided on the alteration of the
line, Mr. Osbaldistone, &c. &c. She could not read anymore; it was Fate
pursuing her. Then she took the letter up again and tried to read; but
all that reached her understanding was the fact that Mr. Johnson had sent
his present letter to Miss Monro, thinking that she might know of some
private opportunity safer than the post. Mr. Brown's was just such a
letter as he occasionally sent her from time to time; a correspondence
that arose out of their mutual regard for their dead friend Mr. Ness. It,
too, had been sent to Miss Monro to direct. Ellinor was on the point of
putting it aside entirely, when the name of Corbet caught her eye: "You
will be interested to hear that the old pupil of our departed friend, who
was so anxious to obtain the folio _Virgil_ with the Italian notes, is
appointed the new judge in room of Mr. Justice Jenkin. At least I
conclude that Mr. Ralph Corbet, Q.C., is the same as the _Virgil_
fancier."

"Yes," said Ellinor, bitterly; "he judged well; it would never have
done." They were the first words of anything like reproach which she
ever formed in her own mind during all these years. She thought for a
few moments of the old times; it seemed to steady her brain to think of
them. Then she took up and finished Miss Monro's letter. That excellent
friend had done all which she thought Ellinor would have wished without
delay. She had written to Mr. Johnson, and charged him to do everything
he could to defend Dixon and to spare no expense. She was thinking of
going to the prison in the county town, to see the old man herself, but
Ellinor could perceive that all these endeavours and purposes of Miss
Monro's were based on love for her own pupil, and a desire to set her
mind at ease as far as she could, rather than from any idea that Dixon
himself could be innocent. Ellinor put down the letters, and went to the
door, then turned back, and locked them up in her writing-case with
trembling hands; and after that she entered the drawing-room, looking
liker to a ghost than to a living woman.

"Can I speak to you for a minute alone?" Her still, tuneless