ook over some other letters. I wonder whether Mary was
right, and it is here we shall find the will!"

He, then, was only thinking of letters and wills! Agatha turned away,
and went to sit by the window and watch the chrysanthemums.

At last she was attracted back by her husband's voice.

"This is the will, I see, by the endorsement. Take it, Agatha; we will
not touch it till the Dugdales come. And here are more letters to my
father. Do you think I ought to burn them or look them over first?"

The confidential tone in which he spoke soothed Agatha. It was a sort of
tacit acknowledgment of her wifely rights to his trust.

"I think, suppose you look them over"--

"I cannot," said he, wearily. "Will you?" And he gave her a handful in
her lap. Agatha felt pleased; she thanked him, and turned them over one
by one.

"Here is a hand which looks like Miss Valery's."

"It is hers. Set them by."

She opened another, in a careless and very illegible hand, which she
could not recognise at all:

"My dear Brother,

"The approaching marriage in your family, of which you inform me,
unfortunately cannot alter my plans. I must recover my lost fortunes
abroad.

"Frederick told me yesterday his certainty of being accepted by Miss
Valery. He might have told me sooner, but perhaps thought me too much of
a crusty old bachelor to sympathise with his felicity. Possibly I am.

"You ask if Anne has communicated to me the coming change in her life?
No.

"Farewell, brother, and God bless you and yours.

"B. L. H."

"Why, this is Uncle Brian!" cried Agatha, giving the letter to her
husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking.
She did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each
other's thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last
Nathanael said:

"It must have been so, though I never guessed it before."

"But I did, though she never openly told me."

"Well, it is a strange world!" mused the young man. "Poor Uncle Brian!"

"When do you expect him home?"

"Any day, every day. Thank God!"

"Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday," said Agatha
hesitatingly. "Just a very little, you know."

"A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?"--Agatha's mute answer was
enough. "Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!"

"Perhaps," said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion--"perhaps
if we take great care, and she is very happy,--people must live when