now--tell me what I must do, and I will obey you like
a child--a poor, weak child as I am."

"I do believe that you thank and trust me," said Josephine, all her
tender self again instantly, and grasping her warmly by the hand. "Many
people think me a rattle-brain, I suppose, and my advice may sometimes
seem very odd and rash; but I am sure that heaven has intended me for
the instrument of foiling that man who would be your destroyer, and I
know that I shall not fail. Please do precisely as I ask--give Egbert
Crawford that letter without a word, and see if it does not produce the
effect I have intended."

"I will do so, and trust that Heaven upon which you call, to save me
from wrong and bring about the right!" answered Mary Crawford.

"The omens are all good," said Josephine, who really had in her nature a
shade of _impressibility_, if not of superstition. "This is Sunday--a
day for good deeds and not for evil ones. This night you were to have
been married: I arrived just in time to put you on your guard. All will
go well, and I shall see you free from a fetter so hateful and the wife
of an honorable man whom I love as if he were my own brother."

"God bless you for all!" said Mary. "Kiss me before I go--my more than
sister."

"Just what I was going to ask of _you_," said Joe Harris, who had great
faith, and was not ashamed to own the fact, in the magnetism of the
lips. The kiss was exchanged, with a warm embrace as an accompaniment,
and then Mary Crawford said:

"I must go at once, before I am missed and too much wonder excited. I
will try to obey all your directions. I shall see you again?--you will
not leave West Falls until--until--"

"Until _you are safe_? No! Not if I stay a month!" was the reply. "If
that letter fails, something else shall _not_! Good-bye, and let me hear
from you to-morrow, or even to-day if anything occurs. But remember, no
marriage to-night, if you have to run away here to escape it!"

"Oh, no! no! no! Good-bye!" and the young girl had passed out of the
door and into the street, bearing the second letter which had that day
left the little house for the great one on the hill, and bearing--oh,
what a terrible change in knowledge and feeling since she had entered
the door less than an hour before! Her brain throbbed almost to
bursting, and every nerve in her body seemed to be strung to an
unendurable tension, as she left the little gate and took her way
homeward. She was wretched, in th