they would.'

'What, not to write to each other when papa had forbidden it, and do it
in secret, too?'

'My dear, don't look so innocently irate. Goodness has nothing to do
with it, it would be only a moderate constancy. You know nothing at all
of lovers.'

'If I know nothing of lovers, I know a great deal of Amy and Guy, and I
am quite sure that nothing on earth would tempt them to do anything in
secret that they were forbidden.'

'Wait till you are in love, and you'll change your mind.'

'I never mean to be in love,' said Charlotte indignantly. Eveleen
laughed the more, Charlotte grew more angry and uncomfortable at the
tone of the conversation, and was heartily glad that it was broken off
by the entrance of the gentlemen. Guy helped Charles to the sofa, and
then turned away to continue his endless talk on Redclyffe business with
Markham. Charlotte flew up to the sofa, seized an interval when no one
was in hearing, and kneeling down to bring her face on a level with her
brother's whispered--'Charlie, Eva won't believe but that Guy and Amy
kept up some intercourse last winter.'

'I can't help it, Charlotte.'

'When I tell her they did not, she only laughs at me. Do tell her they
did not.'

'I have too much self-respect to lay myself open to ridicule.'

'Charlie, you don't think it possible yourself?' exclaimed Charlotte, in
consternation.

'Possible--no indeed.'

'She _will_ say it is not wrong, and that I know nothing of lovers.'

'You should have told her that ours are not commonplace lovers, but far
beyond her small experience.'

'I wish I had! Tell her so, Charlie; she will believe you.'

'I sha'n't say one word about it.'

'Why not?'

'Because she is not worthy. If she can't appreciate them, I would let
her alone. I once thought better of Eva, but it is very bad company she
keeps when she is not here.'

Charles, however, was not sorry when Eveleen came to sit by him, for a
bantering conversation with her was the occupation of which he was moat
capable. Amy, returning, came and sat in her old place beside him, with
her hand in his, and her quiet eyes fixed on the ground.

The last evening for many weeks that she would thus sit with him,--the
last that she would ever be a part of his home. She had already ceased
to belong entirely to him; she who had always been the most precious to
him, except his mother.

Only his mother could have been a greater loss,--he could not dwell
on the anticipat