ton has kindly offered to endeavor to secure my release, and he
will call on you for that paper. I hope you'll like Lurton as well as
he does you. You are the only woman in the world good enough for him,
and he is the only man fit for you. And if it should ever come to pass
that you and he should be happy together, I shall be too glad to envy
either of you.

"Do shield the memory of my mother. You know how little she was to blame.
I can not bear that people should talk about her unkindly. She had such a
dread of censure. I think that is what killed her. I am sorry you wrote
to Helen Minorkey. I could not now share my disgrace with a wife; and if
I could marry, _she_ is one of the last I should ever think of seeking. I
do not even care to have her think well of me.

"As to the property, I am greatly perplexed. Plausaby owned it once
rightfully and legally, and there are innocent creditors who trusted him
on the strength of his possession of it. I wish I did not have the
responsibility of deciding what I ought to do.

"I have written a long letter. I would write a great deal more if I
thought I could ever express the gratitude I feel to you. But I am going
to be always,

"Your grateful and faithful friend,

"ALBERT CHARLTON."

This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely
admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a lover. Albert's
gratitude and praises would have made her happy, but his confidence that
she would marry Lurton vexed her. And yet the thought that Lurton might
love her made it hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter
than any she had supposed possible to her.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. LURTON'S COURTSHIP.

After the death of Mrs. Plausaby, Isa had broken at once with her
uncle-in-law, treating him with a wholesome contempt whenever she found
opportunity. She had made many apologies for Plausaby's previous
offenses--this was too much even for her ingenious charity. For want of a
better boarding-place, she had taken up her abode at Mrs. Ferret's, and
had opened a little summer-school in the village schoolhouse. She began
immediately to devise means for securing Charlton's release. Her first
step was to write to Lurton, but she had hardly mailed the letter, when
she received Albert's, announcing that Lurton was coming to see her; and
almost immediately that gentleman himself appeared again in
Metropolisville. He spent the evening in devising with Isa prope