f lyin'? Miss Fanny never'd got as well as she is if
she's picked up a mess of lies to tell us."

Fanny's health was indeed much improved, and for a day or two after her
return home, she bounded about the house and grounds as lightly and
merrily as she had done in childhood. Mr. Middleton noticed the change and
was delighted. "I b'lieve she's forgettin' that paltry doctor," said he,
but he was wrong.

The third day after her return she was sitting with her parents, relating
to them an account of her journey, when Ike entered the room. He had been
sent to the post office and now came up to Fanny, saying, "Here, I done
got this air," at the same time handing her a letter, which she instantly
saw was from her sister. Eagerly taking it, she said, "A letter from
Julia. I am delighted. It is a long time since I have heard from her."
Then quickly breaking the seal, she commenced reading it.

Gradually as she read there stole over her face a strange expression. It
was a look of despair--of hope utterly crushed, but she finished the letter
and then mechanically passing it to her father, she said, "Read it; it
concerns us all," and then rising she went to her room, leaving her father
to read and swear over Julia's letter at his leisure. That he did so no
one will doubt when they learn its contents.

The first page contained assurances of love; the second congratulated
Fanny upon her engagement with Frank, but chided her for suffering Lida
Gibson to be the bearer of the news. "Why did you not write to me
yourself?" she said--"that is the way I shall do, and now to prove my
words, you will see how confiding I am." Then followed the intelligence
that Dr. Lacey had the night before offered his heart and hand and of
course had been accepted. "You will not wonder at it," she wrote, "for you
know how much I have always loved him. I was, however, greatly surprised
when he told me he always preferred me to you, but was prevented from
telling me so by my silly engagement with Mr. Wilmot and my supposed
affection for him." The letter ended by saying that Dr. Lacey would
accompany her home some time during the latter part of October, when their
marriage would take place. There was also a "P.S.," in which Julia wrote,
"Do, Fan, use your influence with the old man and make him fix up the
infernal old air castle. I'd as soon be married in the horse barn as
there."

This, then, was the letter which affected Fanny so, and called all of
Uncle