e more unhappy than
others, therefore she should allow herself to be more idle. Morning
and night she prayed for him, and daily, almost hour by hour, she
assured herself that it was still her duty to love him. It was hard,
this duty of loving, without any power of expressing such love. But
still she would do her duty.

"Tell me at once, mamma," she said one morning, "when you hear that
the day is fixed for his marriage. Pray don't keep me in the dark."

"It is to be in February," said Mrs Dale.

"But let me know the day. It must not be to me like ordinary days.
But do not look unhappy, mamma; I am not going to make a fool of
myself. I shan't steal off and appear in the church like a ghost."
And then, having uttered her little joke, a sob came, and she hid her
face on her mother's bosom. In a moment she raised it again. "Believe
me, mamma, that I am not unhappy," she said.

After the expiration of that second week Mrs Dale did write a letter
to Crosbie:

I suppose [she said] it is right that I should acknowledge
the receipt of your letter. I do not know that I have aught
else to say to you. It would not become me as a woman to
say what I think of your conduct, but I believe that your
conscience will tell you the same things. If it do not, you
must, indeed, be hardened. I have promised my child that I
will send to you a message from her. She bids me tell you
that she has forgiven you, and that she does not hate you.
May God also forgive you, and may you recover his love.

MARY DALE.

I beg that no rejoinder may be made to this letter, either
to myself or to any of my family.

The squire wrote no answer to the letter which he had received, nor
did he take any steps towards the immediate punishment of Crosbie.
Indeed he had declared that no such steps could be taken, explaining
to his nephew that such a man could be served only as one serves a
rat.

"I shall never see him," he said once again; "if I did, I should not
scruple to hit him on the head with my stick; but I should think ill
of myself to go after him with such an object."

And yet it was a terrible sorrow to the old man that the scoundrel
who had so injured him and his should escape scot-free. He had not
forgiven Crosbie. No idea of forgiveness had ever crossed his mind.
He would have hated himself had he thought it possible that he
could be induced to forgive such an injury. "There is an amount of
rascality i