it. I can only tell
you that she is beginning to find relief from the heavy pressure of
sorrow and suspense in new thoughts and new hopes. I doubt if she has
yet realized this in her own mind; but I see the result, although she is
not conscious of it herself. I see her heart opening to the consolation
of another interest and another love. She has not said a word to me on
the subject, nor have I said a word to her. But as certainly as I
know that Mr. George Bartram's visits have lately grown more and more
frequent to the family at Portland Place--so certainly I can assure you
that Norah is finding a relief under her suspense, which is not of my
bringing, and a hope in the future, which I have not taught her to feel.

"It is needless for me to say that I tell you this in the strictest
confidence. God knows whether the happy prospect which seems to me to
be just dawning will grow brighter or not as time goes on. The oftener
I see Mr. George Bartram--and he has called on me more than once--the
stronger my liking for him grows. To my poor judgment he seems to be a
gentleman in the highest and truest sense of the word. If I could
live to see Norah his wife, I should almost feel that I had lived long
enough. But who can discern the future? We have suffered so much that I
am afraid to hope.

"Have you heard anything of Magdalen? I don't know why or how it is;
but since I have known of her husband's death, my old tenderness for her
seems to cling to me more obstinately than ever. Always yours truly,

"HARRIET GARTH."

II

_From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth._

"Serle Street, January 4th, 1848.

"DEAR MISS GARTH--Of Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself I have heard nothing.
But I have learned, since I saw you, that the report of the position in
which she is left by the death of her husband may be depended upon as
the truth. No legacy of any kind is bequeathed to her. Her name is not
once mentioned in her husband's will.

"Knowing what we know, it is not to be concealed that this circumstance
threatens us with more embarrassment, and perhaps with more distress.
Mrs. Noel Vanstone is not the woman to submit, without a desperate
resistance, to the total overthrow of all her schemes and all her hopes.
The mere fact that nothing whatever has been heard of her since her
husband's death is suggestive to my mind of serious mischief to come.
In her situation, and with her temper, the quieter she is now, the more
inveterately I, for one, di