“You have read it, mamma!” flushing angrily, as she took it from her mother’s hand.

“I have read the first line and the last.  I certainly should not take the trouble to wade all through such contemptible trash!” Which was an unprovoked insult to poor Beatrice’s feelings.

She snatched the letter from her mother’s hand, and crumpled it jealously under her pillow.

“How can you call it trash, then, if you have not read it?”

It was hard, certainly; to have her letter opened was bad enough, but to have it called names was worse still.  The letter, which to Beatrice would be so full of sacred charm and delight—­such a poem on love and its sweetness—­was nothing more to her mother than “contemptible trash!”

But where in the whole world has a love-letter been indited, however delightful and perfect it may be to the writer and the receiver of it, that is nothing but an object of ridicule or contempt to the whole world beside?  Love is divine as Heaven itself to the two people who are concerned in its ever new delights; but to us lookers-on its murmurs are but fooleries, its sighs are ludicrous, and its written words absolute imbecilities; and never a memory of our own lost lives can make the spectacle of it in others anything but an irritating and idiotic exhibition.

“I have read quite enough,” continued Mrs. Miller, sternly, “to understand the nature of it.  It is from Mr. Pryme, I imagine?”

“Yes, mamma.”

“And by what right, may I ask, does Mr. Pryme commence a letter to you in the warm terms of affection which I have had the pleasure of reading?”

“By the right which I myself have given him,” she answered, boldly.

Regardless of her cold, she sat upright in her bed; a flush of defiance in her face, her short dark hair flung back from her brow in wild confusion.  She understood at once that all had been discovered, and she was going to do battle for her lover.

“Do you mean to tell me, Beatrice, that you have engaged yourself to this Mr. Pryme?”

“Certainly I have.”

“You know very well that your father and I will never consent to it.”

“Never is a long day, mamma.”

“Don’t take up my words like that.  I consider, Beatrice, that you have deceived me shamefully.  You persuaded me to ask that young man to the house because you said that Sophy Macpherson was fond of him.”

“So she is.”

“Beatrice, how can you be so wicked and tell such lies in the face of that letter to yourself?”

“I never said he was fond of her,” she answered, with just the vestige of a twinkle in her eyes.

“If I had known, I would never have asked him to come,” continued her mother.

“No; I am sure you would not.  But I did not tell you, mamma.”

“I have other views for you.  You must write to this young man and tell him you will give him up.”