“Terrified at what?” he asked.

“At those men,” she whispered.  “It is strange that Mr. Vane has not come.”

“Is the post in?”

“I don’t know,” she apathetically replied.  “I have received nothing.”

She had scarcely spoke when the butler entered with his salver full of letters, most of them bearing condolence with Lady Isabel.  She singled out one and hastened to open it, for it bore the Castle Marling post-mark.  “It is Mrs. Vane’s handwriting,” she remarked to Mr. Carlyle.

CASTLE MARLING, Saturday.

“MY DEAR ISABEL—­I am dreadfully grieved and shocked at the news conveyed in Mr. Carlyle’s letter to my husband, for he has gone cruising in his yacht, and I opened it.  Goodness knows where he may be, round the coast somewhere, but he said he should be home for Sunday, and as he is pretty punctual in keeping his word, I expect him.  Be assured he will not lose a moment in hastening to East Lynne.

“I cannot express what I feel for you, and am too bouleversee to write more.  Try and keep up your spirits, and believe me, dear Isabel, with sincere sympathy and regret, faithfully yours,

“EMMA MOUNT SEVERN.”

The color came into Isabel’s pale cheek when she read the signature.  She thought, had she been the writer, she should, in that first, early letter, have still signed herself Emma Vane.  Isabel handed the note to Mr. Carlyle.  “It is very unfortunate,” she sighed.

Mr. Carlyle glanced over it as quickly as Mrs. Vane’s illegible writing allowed him, and drew in his lips in a peculiar manner when he came to the signature.  Perhaps at the same thought which had struck Isabel.

“Had Mrs. Vane been worth a rush, she would have come herself, knowing your lonely situation,” he uttered, impulsively.

Isabel leaned her head upon her hand.  All the difficulties and embarrassments of her position came crowding on her mind.  No orders had been given in preparation for the funeral, and she felt that she had no right to give any.  The earls of Mount Severn were buried at Mount Severn; but to take her father thither would involve great expense; would the present earl sanction that?  Since the previous morning, she seemed to have grown old in the world’s experience; her ideas were changed, the bent of her thoughts had been violently turned from its course.  Instead of being a young lady of high position, of wealth and rank, she appeared to herself more in the light of an unfortunate pauper and interloper in the house she was inhabiting.  It has been the custom in romance to present young ladies, especially if they be handsome and interesting, as being entirely oblivious of matter-of-fact cares and necessities, supremely indifferent to future prospects of poverty—­poverty that brings hunger and thirst and cold and nakedness; but, be assured, this apathy never existed in real life.  Isabel Vane’s grief for her father—­whom,