firmness, or perhaps you will
say the hardness of heart, to say so openly. I am sure of
this, and so is Amelia, that it will be better for you
to give the matter up altogether, and to come here and
recover the blow among friends who will be as kind to you
as possible. I know all that you will feel, and you have
my fullest sympathy; but even such sorrows as that are
cured by time, and by the mercy of God, which is not only
infinite, but all-powerful.

Your most affectionate friend,

C. FAWN.

Lady Fawn, when she had written her letter, discussed it with Amelia,
and the two together agreed that Lucy would never surmount the ill
effects of the blow which was thus prophesied. "As to saying it will
kill her, mamma," said Amelia, "I don't believe in that. If I were
to break my leg, the accident might shorten my life, and this may
shorten hers. It won't kill her in any other way. But it will alter
her altogether. Nobody ever used to make herself happy so easily as
Lucy Morris; but all that will be gone now."

When Lucy received the letter, the immediate effect upon her, the
effect which came from the first reading of it, was not very great.
She succeeded for some half-hour in putting it aside, as referring
to a subject on which she had quite made up her mind in a direction
contrary to that indicated by her correspondent's advice. Lady Fawn
told her that her lover intended to be false to her. She had thought
the matter over very carefully within the last day or two, and had
altogether made up her mind that she would continue to trust her
lover. She had abstained from sending to him the letter which she had
written, and had abstained on that resolution. Lady Fawn, of course,
was as kind and friendly as a friend could be. She loved Lady Fawn
dearly. But she was not bound to think Lady Fawn right, and in this
instance she did not think Lady Fawn right. So she folded up the
letter and put it in her pocket.

But by putting the letter into her pocket she could not put it out
of her mind. Though she had resolved, of what use to her was a
resolution in which she could not trust? Day had passed by after day,
week after week, and month after month, and her very soul within her
had become sad for want of seeing this man, who was living almost in
the next street to her. She was ashamed to own to herself how many
hours she had sat at the window, thinking that, perhaps, he might
walk before the house i