, and now--and now--that old man,
tottering into his grave, has taught me the vileness of it."

"He offered you Herst? He offered you twenty thousand pounds a year?"

"He did, indeed. Was it not noble? Does it not show how highly he
esteems me? I was to be sole mistress of the place; and Marcia was to
be portioned off and--I saw by his eyes--banished."

"And you--_refused_?"

"Letty! How can you ask me such a question? Besides refusing, I had the
small satisfaction of telling him exactly what I thought of him and his
proposal. I do not think he will make such overtures to me again. Are
you disappointed, Letty, that you look so strangely? Did you think,
dear, I should bring you home some good news, instead of this
disgraceful story?"

"No." In a low tone, and with a gesture of impatience. "I am not
thinking of myself. Last week, Molly, you relinquished your love--for
us; to-day you have resigned fortune. Will you never repent? In the
days to come, how will you forgive us? Before it is too late, think it
over and----"

"Letitia," says Molly, laying her hand upon her sister's lips, "if you
ever speak to me like that again I shall--_kill you_."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Mute and amazed was Alden; and listen'd and look'd at Priscilla,
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty."

--Longfellow.

It is the 2d of March--four months later (barely four months, for some
days must still elapse before that time is fully up)--and a raw
evening,--very raw, and cold even for the time of year,--when the
train, stopping at the Victoria Station, suffers a young man to alight
from it.

He is a tall young man, slight and upright, clad in one of the
comfortable long coats of the period, with an aristocratic face and
sweet, keen blue eyes. His moustache, fair and lengthy, is drooping
sadly through dampness and the general inclemency of the weather.

Pushing his way through the other passengers, with a discontented
expression upon his genial face that rather misbecomes it, he emerges
into the open air, to find that a smart drizzle, unworthy the name of
rain, is falling inhospitably upon him.

There is a fog,--not as thick as it might be, but a decided fog,--and
everything is gloomy to the last degree.

Stumbling up against another tall young man, dressed almost to a tie
the same as himself, he smothers the uncivil ejaculation that rises so
naturally to his lips, and after a second