Ethel was a bright, pleasant girl, and, being left very much to herself, she seemed to live in a world of her own.  As a child she peopled this world with dolls, and each doll had an individuality, a history, and a set of ideas attached to it, which gave her almost a human companionship in it.  Then came the world of fairies and gnomes and elves, amongst whom she held sway as queen, and many a plant and shrub in the garden, and glade in the woodlands, was a part of her fairy-land.  And, now that she was nearly seventeen, a new world was dawning upon her; human wants and human sympathies were demanding her thought and care, and every day brought her into contact with those in the villages round about, whose histories were educating her heart into the true ideal of womanhood.

As Mr. Morton finished reading the letter he passed it to his wife, merely remarking: 

“You will see Digby has mixed himself up with some disagreeable piece of business in the school.  It is time he came home.  I shall see Mr. Vickers about him to-day, and write for him to return as soon as this affair has blown over, instead of in September, in order that he may commence his studies in the law at once.”

Leaving Mrs. Morton to mourn that her anxieties and responsibilities were to be increased by Digby’s return, and Ethel to rejoice in the fact that her brother was coming home to be again her companion, let us now take a glance into a home in the suburbs of London.

It is a humbler home than that we have just visited, and a happier one.  The breakfast-room is elegantly furnished, but it is small; the garden is well stocked with flowers, but the whole extent of it is not greater than the lawn at Ashley House.

There are three people round the breakfast-table.  Mrs. Pemberton, a handsome woman, dressed in the neatest of black and lavender dresses, and wearing a picturesque widow’s-cap.  Nellie, her daughter, a girl about nine or ten years old, and Captain Arkwright, a retired naval officer, the brother of Mrs. Pemberton.

There is anxiety on each face, and traces of recent tears mark that of Mrs. Pemberton, as she nervously turns over and over in her hand a long letter from Dr. Brier, and a still longer and more closely written one from Howard.

“It is an extraordinary and distressing affair,” she said, “and I am at a loss to know what to do.  What would you advise, Charles?”

“I should advise Dr. Brier to choose a lunatic asylum to go to.  What a wooden-headed old fellow he must be, to have got the affair into such a mess.  Do?  I should do nothing.  You certainly don’t suppose Howard is really concerned in the affair.  Not he; that sort of thing isn’t in his line.  It’ll all come right enough by and by, so, don’t fidget yourself, my dear,” he continued.  “There’s some vile plot laid against Howard, but if he doesn’t come clean out of it with flying colors, call me a simpleton.”