“Nothing very serious, I apprehend.”

“No.  I suppose she will go home and cry her eyes half out, and then conclude that, whatever Fisher may have been, he’s perfection now.  It’s a first-rate joke, isn’t it?”

Clara Grant had not only left the parlours, but soon after quietly left the house, and alone returned to her home.  When her lover, shortly afterwards, searched through the rooms for her, she was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is Clara?” he asked of one and another.  The answer was—­

“I saw her here a moment since.”

But it was soon very apparent that she was nowhere in the rooms now.  Fisher moved about uneasy for half an hour.  Still, not seeing her, he became anxious lest a sudden illness had caused her to retire from the company.  More particular inquiries were made of the lady who had given the entertainment.  She immediately ascertained for him that Clara was not in the house.  One of the servants reported that a lady had gone away alone half an hour before.  Fisher did not remain a single moment after receiving this intelligence, but went direct to the house of Clara’s aunt, with whom she lived, and there ascertained that she had come home and retired to her room without seeing any of the family.

His inquiry whether she were ill, the servant could not answer.

“Have you seen anything of Clara yet?” asked the friend of Mears, with a smile, as they met about an hour after they had disturbed the peace of a trusting, innocent-minded girl, “just for the fun of it.”

“I have not,” replied Mears.

“Where’s Fisher?”

“He is gone also.”

“Ah, indeed!  I’m sorry the matter was taken so seriously by the young lady.  It was only a joke.”

“Yes.  That was all; and she ought to have known it.”

On the next day, Fisher, who had spent a restless night, called to ask for Clara as early as he could do so with propriety.

“She wishes you to excuse her,” said the servant, who had taken up his name to the young lady.

“Is she not well?” asked Fisher.

“She has not been out of her room this morning.  I don’t think she is very well.”

The young man retired with a troubled feeling at his heart.  In the evening he called again; but Clara sent him word, as she had done in the morning, that she wished to be excused.

In the mean time, the young lady was a prey to the most distressing doubts.  What she had heard, vague as it was, fell like ice upon her heart.  She had no reason to question what had been said, for it was, as far as appeared to her, the mere expression of a fact made in confidence by friend to friend without there being an object in view.  If any one had come to her and talked to her after that manner, she would have rejected the allegations indignantly, and confidently pronounced them false.  But they had met her in a shape so unexpected, and with so much seeming truth, that she was left no alternative but to believe.