im, and
felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before
the innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the
nature of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive
contempt and aversion.

She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too,
and wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major
Harper:

"You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did
you not tell your brother?" And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement
of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a
trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major
Harper seemed.

"I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?" he repeated, sharply.

"Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you."

"Glad to see me?" He again repeated her words, as though he had none
of his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through
a certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked,
making almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to
be led along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he
might think she noticed his discomposure.

Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's
Park to fetch his wife, according to agreement.

Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of
her husband's character--his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered
plans or broken promises. "Still, you must come in and wait for him."

"Wait for whom?" said Major Harper, absently.

"Your brother."

"My brother!--I, wait to see my brother! Impossible--I--I'll write. Good
morning--good morning."

He was leaving the hall--more hurried and agitated than ever--when Mrs.
Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.

"I will not let you go. Come in, and tell me what ails you."

The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion--womanly compassion
only, without any love--were more than Major Harper could resist.

"I will go," he muttered. "Better tell it to you than to my brother."
And he followed her up-stairs.

The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a
glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.

"Well, my dear young lady," he said, with some return of the paternal
manner of old times, "when did you come back to London?"

"Two days since, as I told you. An