ed, it will be best for you
and me to try to forget each other. Give my compliments to your sister
Julia. By the way, do you know that I always admired her very much? What a
sensation she would make in the fashionable world of New Orleans. But
pshaw! What nonsense I'm writing."

Alas for Fanny! She did not need to read the letter twice, for every
syllable had burned into her soul, and she could have repeated each word
of the cruel message. This, then, was the end of her bright dream of
bliss! She did not weep, for she could not. The fountain of her tears
seemed dried up. A heavy weight had suddenly fallen on all her faculties.
The objects in the room chased each other in rapid circles, while Dr.
Lacey stood in the distance mocking her anguish. A faint feeling gathered
round her heart. She uttered a low cry and fell heavily forward.

When Julia entered the room she found her sister extended on the floor,
cold and white as a piece of marble, while the blood was gushing from her
nostrils and moistening the curls of her long hair. Julia's first feeling
was one of intense horror, or fear her sister might be dead, but a touch
assured her that Fanny had only fainted. So she lifted her up, and bearing
her to the window applied the usual restoratives. As Julia looked on the
death-like face of her young sister she murmured, "Had I thought she loved
him so well, never would I have done so wickedly."

But she made no promise to repair the mischief, and stifled all the better
impulses of her nature by saying, "It is too late now: it is too late."

At last Fanny opened her eyes. Her first thought was for her letter, which
was still tightly clenched in her hand. Passing it to Julia she said,
faintly, "Read it, sister."

Julia took it, and pretending to read it, burst into a violent passion,
abusing Dr. Lacey for his meanness, and ending by telling Fanny that she
ought to consider herself fortunate in escaping from such a man. Fanny
seemed disturbed to hear evil spoken of Dr. Lacey, so Julia changed her
manner, and said, "I do not wonder you feel badly, Fanny. You and I can
sympathize together now."

Fanny looked at her sister in some surprise, but at last answered, "Oh no,
you cannot know how I feel. Mr. Wilmot loved you to the last. Dr. Lacey is
not dead, but--"

Here Julia interrupted her by saying, "I do not mean to refer to Mr.
Wilmot. I was flattered by his attentions, but I never knew what it was to
love until I saw D