“She stood by me when I opened her father’s letter, enclosing the one for her.  I did not dream from whence it came, and handed it to her without a thought.”

“Agnes!  Agnes!  What have you done?” exclaimed Aunt Grace, in a troubled voice.

“Nothing for which I need reproach myself,” said Mrs. Markland, now grown calmer.  “Had the discretion been left with me, I should not have given Fanny the letter until Edward returned.  But it passed to her hands through no will of mine.  With the Great Controller of events it must now be left.”

“Oh dear!  Don’t talk about the Controller of events in a case of this kind.  Wise people control such things through the wisdom given them.  I always think of Jupiter and the wagoner, when I hear any one going on this way.”

Aunt Grace was excited.  She usually was when she thought earnestly.  But her warmth of word and manner rarely disturbed Mrs. Markland, who knew her thoroughly, and valued her for her good qualities and strong attachment to the family.  No answer was made, and Aunt Grace added, in a slightly changed voice,—­

“I don’t know that you are so much to blame, Agnes, seeing that Fanny saw the letter, and that you were ignorant of its contents.  But Edward might have known that something like this would happen.  Why didn’t he put the letter into his pocket, and keep it until he came home?  He seems to have lost his common sense.  And then he must go off into that rigmarole about Mr. Lyon, and try to make him out a saint, as if to encourage you to give his letter to Fanny.  I’ve no patience with him!  Mr. Lyon, indeed!  If he doesn’t have a heart-scald of him before he’s done with him, I’m no prophet.  Important business for Mr. Lyon!  Why didn’t Mr. Lyon attend to his own business when he was in New York?  Oh!  I can see through it all, as clear as daylight.  He’s got his own ends to gain through Edward, who is blind and weak enough to be led by him.”

“Hasty in judgment as ever,” said Mrs. Markland, with a subdued, resigned manner, as she arose and commenced moving toward the house, her sister-in-law walking by her side,—­“and quick to decide upon character.  But neither men nor women are to be read at a glance.”

“So much the more reason for holding strangers at arms’ length,” returned Aunt Grace.

But Mrs. Markland felt in no mood for argument on so fruitless a subject.  On entering the house, she passed to her own private apartment, there to commune with herself alone.

CHAPTER VII.

Only a few minutes had Mrs. Markland been in her room, when the door opened quietly, and Fanny’s light foot-fall was in her ears.  She did not look up; but her heart beat with a quicker motion, and her breath was half-suspended.

“Mother!”

She lifted her bowed head, and met the soft, clear eyes of her daughter looking calmly down into her own.