llys, drily.

'But don't you think it so, really?'

'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and perhaps a little
cunning.'

'Cunning!--how?'

'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and
then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think he
is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say
I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also himself
a good deal; and he wants money, and you--his beloved niece--have a great
deal--and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter: and he has
sent his attorney here to make a note of the will; and you are to give the
gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you
to confide your difficulties and troubles to _his_ solicitor. It is very
kind, but not imprudent.'

'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is hardly natural
that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at other times
of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you, you know, so
little acquainted with him.'

'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing--and there's an end; and I really
don't care two pence about him; and of the two I'd much rather he were no
relation of ours.'

Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was
my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are
factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates
rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more
amiable.

I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my cousin
Monica's entrance.

Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy, with
the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the sky
looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the attitude
of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief
darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural
fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come since
my beloved father's death.

All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time,
dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these
Swedenborgians who had got about him--no one could tell how--and held
him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged,
black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, wh