“I don’t know what eyes were given us for, if we are not to see with them,” returned Aunt Grace, dogmatically.  “But no wonder so many stumble and fall, when so few use their eyes.  There isn’t that man living who does not bear, stamped upon his face, the symbols of his character.  And plainly enough are these to be seen in the countenance of Mr. Lyon.”

“And how do you read them, Aunt Grace?” inquired Fanny, with a manner so passionless, that even the sharp-sighted aunt was deceived in regard to the amount of feeling that lay hidden in her heart.

“How do I read them?  I’ll tell you.  I read them as the index to a whole volume of scheming selfishness.  The man is unsound at the core.”  Aunt Grace was tempted by the unruffled exterior of her niece to speak thus strongly.  Her words went deeper than she had expected.  Fanny’s face crimsoned instantly to the very temples, and an indignant light flashed in her soft blue eyes.

“Objects often take their colour from the medium through which we see them,” she said quickly, and in a voice considerably disturbed, looking, as she spoke, steadily and meaningly at her aunt.

“And so you think the hue is in the medium, and not in the object?” said Aunt Grace, her tone a little modified.

“In the present instance, I certainly do,” answered Fanny, with some ardour.

“Ah, child! child!” returned her aunt, “this may be quite as true in your case as in mine.  Neither of us may see the object in its true colour.  You will, at least, admit this to be possible.”

“Oh, yes.”

“And suppose you see it in a false colour?”

“Well?” Fanny seemed a little bewildered.

“Well?  And what then?” Aunt Grace gazed steadily upon the countenance of Fanny, until her eyes drooped to the floor.  “To whom is it of most consequence to see aright?”

Sharp-seeing, but not wise Aunt Grace!  In the blindness of thy anxiety for Fanny, thou art increasing her peril.  What need for thee to assume for the maiden, far too young yet to have the deeper chords of womanhood awakened in her heart to love’s music, that the evil or good in the stranger’s character might be any thing to her?

“You talk very strangely, Grace,” said Mrs. Markland, with just enough of rebuke in her voice to make her sister-in-law conscious that she was going too far.  “Perhaps we had better change the subject,” she added, after the pause of a few moments.

“As you like,” coldly returned Aunt Grace, who soon after left the room, feeling by no means well satisfied with herself or anybody else.  Not a word had been said to her touching the contents of Fanny’s letter, and in that fact was indicated a want of confidence that considerably annoyed her.  She had not, certainly, gone just the right way about inviting confidence; but this defect in her own conduct was not seen very clearly.

A constrained reserve marked the intercourse of mother, daughter, and aunt during the day; and when night came, and the evening circle was formed as usual, how dimly burned the hearth-fire, and how sombre were the shadows cast by its flickering blaze!  Early they separated, each with a strange pressure on the feelings, and a deep disquietude of heart.