he has been away for fifteen years. But then he has
kept up a constant correspondence with them; while I, tossing about in
the world--ah! I have had a hard life, Miss Bowen!"

He looked so sad, that Agatha felt sorry for him. But his melancholy
moods had less power to touch her than of old. His gaiety so quickly
and invariably returned, that her belief in the reality of his grief was
somewhat shaken.

She paused a little, and then recurred again, indifferently as it were,
to Nathanael--the one person in his family of whom Major Harper always
spoke gladly and warmly.

"You seem to have a great love for your younger brother. Is he then so
noble a character?"

"What do you call a noble character, my dear young lady?"

The half-jesting, half-patronising manner irritated Agatha; but she
answered boldly:

"A man honest in his principles, faithful to his word; just, generous,
and honourable."

"What a category of qualities! How interested young ladies are in a
pale, thin boy! Well then"--seeing that Agatha looked serious--"well
then, I declare to Heaven that, even according to your high-flown
definitions, he is as noble a lad as ever breathed. I can find no
fault in him, except that, as I said, he is such a mere boy. Are
you satisfied? Did you want to try if I were indeed a heartless,
unbrotherly, good-for-nothing fellow, as you appear to think me
sometimes?"

"No," said Agatha briefly, noticing with something like scorn the
Major's instinctive assumption that her questions must have some near
or remote reference to himself, while he never once guessed their real
motive. That answered, she changed the conversation.

After half-an-hour's chat, Major Harper delicately alluded to the
supposed business on which she had wished to see him, though in a tone
that showed him to be rather doubtful whether it existed at all.

Agatha coloured, and her heart quailed a little, as any girl's would,
in having to speak so openly of things which usually reach young maidens
softly murmured amidst the confessions of first love, or revealed
by tender parents with blessings and tears. Life's earliest and best
romance came to her with all its bloom worn away--all its sacredness and
mystery set aside. For a moment she felt this hard.

"I wished to inform you of something nearly concerning me, which, as
the guardian appointed by my father, it is right you should know. I
have had"--here she tried to make her lips say the words without
f