Cora looked up, her languor all gone, her interest aroused.  Something was rising in her mind; not a sun of hope ah! no—­but nebula, obscure, unformed, indistinct, yet with possible suns of hope, worlds of happiness, within it.  What did her grandfather mean?  Had he heard something about—­Was Rule yet—­

Swift as lightning flashed these thoughts through her mind while her grandfather drew his breath between his utterances.

“Listen!  This is what I had to tell you:  I had a letter a few days ago from an old suitor of yours,” he said, looking keenly at his granddaughter.

Cora’s eyes fell, her spirits drooped.  The nebula of unknown hopes and joys had faded away, leaving her prospect dark again.  She looked depressed and disappointed.  She could feel no shadow of interest in her old suitors.

“I received this letter several days since, and being at leisure just then.  I answered it.  But in the pressure of some important matters I forgot to tell you of it, though it concerned yourself mostly, I might say entirely.  Shouldn’t have remembered it now, I suppose, if it had not been for your foolish talk about going out for a missionary to the savages.  Ah! another destiny awaits your acceptance.”

Cora sighed in silence.

“Now, then.  Of course you must know who this correspondent is.”

“Without offense to you, grandfather, I neither know nor care,” languidly replied the lady.

“But it is not without offense to me.  You are the most eccentric and inconsistent woman I ever met in all the course of my life.  You are not constant even to your inconstancy.”

Having uttered this paradox, the old man threw himself back in his chair and gazed at his granddaughter.

“I am not yet clear as to your meaning, sir,” she said, coldly but respectfully.

“What!  Have you quite forgotten the titled dandy for whom you were near breaking your heart three years ago?  For whom you were ready to throw over one of the best and truest men that ever lived!  For whom you really did drive Regulas Rothsay, on the proudest and happiest day of his life, into exile and death!”

“Oh, don’t! don’t! grandfather!  Don’t!” wailed Cora, sinking on an office stool, and dropping her hands and head on the table.

“Now, none of that, mistress.  No hysterics, if you please.  I won’t permit any woman about me to indulge in such tantrums.  Listen to me, ma’am.  My correspondent was young Cumbervale, the noodle!”

“Then I never wish to see or hear or think of him again!” exclaimed Cora.

“Indeed!  But that is a woman all through.  She will do or suffer anything to get her own way.  She will defy all her friends and relations, all principles of truth and honor; she will move Heaven and earth, go through fire and water, to get her own way; and when she does get it she don’t want it, and she won’t have it.”

“Grandfather!” pleaded Cora.