t the cottage. If for a parting instant a thought of
bygones would obtrude, I hastened to escape from it as from a gloomy
reminiscence. I turned away as would a dreamer who dreaded to awaken
out of some delicious vision, and who would not face the dull aspect of
reality. Three weeks thus glided by of such happiness as I can scarcely
yet recall without emotion! The Croftons had come to treat me like a
brother; they spoke of family events in all freedom before me; talked of
the most confidential things in my presence, and discussed their future
plans and their means as freely in my hearing as though I had been
kith and kin with them. I learned that they were orphans, educated and
brought up by a rich, eccentric uncle, who lived in a sort of costly
reclusion in one of the Cumberland dales; Edward, who had served in the
army, and been wounded in an Indian campaign, had given up the service
in a fit of impatience of being passed over in promotion.

His uncle resented the rash step by withdrawing the liberal allowance he
had usually made him, and they quarrelled. Mary Crofton, espousing her
brother's side, quitted her guardian's roof to join his; and thus had
they rambled about the world for two or three years, on means scanty
enough, but still sufficient to provide for those who neither sought to
enter society nor partake of its pleasures.

As I advanced in the intimacy, I became depository of the secrets of
each. Edward's was the sorrow he felt for having involved his sister in
his own ruin, and been the means of separating her from one so well able
and so willing to befriend her. Hers was the more bitter thought that
their narrow means should prejudice her brother's chances of recovery,
for his chest had shown symptoms of dangerous disease requiring all that
climate and consummate care might do to overcome. Preyed on incessantly
by this reflection, unable to banish it, equally unable to resist its
force, he took the first and only step she had ever adventured
without his knowledge, and had written to her uncle a long letter of
explanations and entreaty.

I saw the letter, and read it carefully. It was all that sisterly love
and affection could dictate, accompanied by a sense of dignity, that if
her appeal should be unsuccessful, no slight should be passed upon
her brother, who was unaware of the step thus taken. To express this
sufficiently, she was driven to the acknowledgment that Edward would
never have himself stoope