“Sit down, Gilbert,” she said; and her brother dropped into a chair by her side with a faint sigh of resignation.  “I want to talk to you seriously, as a sister ought to talk to a brother, without any fear of offending.  I’m very sorry to see you have not yet forgotten that wicked ungrateful girl Marian Nowell.”

“Who told you that I have not forgotten her?”

“Your own face, Gilbert.  It’s no use for you to put on a pretence of being cheerful and light-hearted with me.  I know you too well to be deceived by that kind of thing—­I could see how absent-minded you were all dinner-time, in spite of your talk.  You can’t hoodwink an affectionate sister.”

“I don’t wish to hoodwink you, my dear,” Mr. Fenton answered quietly, “or to affect a happiness which I do not feel, any more than I wish to make a parade of my grief.  It is natural for an Englishman to be reticent on such matters; but I do not mind owning to you that Marian Nowell is unforgotten by me, and that the loss of her will have an enduring influence upon my life; and having said as much as that, Belle, I must request that you will not expatiate any more upon this poor girl’s breach of faith.  I have forgiven her long ago, and I shall always regard her as the purest and dearest of women.”

“What! you can hold her up as a paragon of perfection after she has thrown you over in the most heartless manner?  Upon my word, Gilbert, I have no common patience with such folly.  Your weakness in this affair from first to last has been positively deplorable.”

“I am sorry you disapprove of my conduct, Belle; but as it is not a very pleasant subject, don’t you think we may as well avoid it now and henceforward?”

“O, very well, Gilbert,” the lady exclaimed, with an offended air; “of course, if you choose to exclude me from your confidence, I must submit; but I do think it rather hard that your only sister should not he allowed to speak of a business that concerns you so nearly.”

“What good can arise out of any discussion of this subject, Belle?  You think me weak and foolish; granted that I am both, you cannot cure me of my weakness or my folly.”

“And am I never to hope that you will find some one else, better worthy of your regard than Marian Nowell?”

“I fear not, Belle.  For me there is no one else.”

Mrs. Lister breathed a profound sigh, and resumed the counting of her stitches.  Yet perhaps, after all, it was better that her brother should cherish the memory of this unlucky attachment.  It would preserve him from the hazard of any imprudent alliance in the future, and leave his fortune free, to descend by-and-by to the juvenile Listers.  Isabella was not a particularly mercenary person, but she was a woman of the world, and had an eye to the future aggrandisement of her children.