trust somewhat to others' judgment in her disposal. It gives me more pain than I can say to write in this mood, but necessity permits me no kinder words. I want you to be sure that the wrench, the "No" here is absolute. My dear friend, pity rather than blame me; and I will be so unselfish as to hope you may not think so kindly of me as to be cruel to yourself. Please to consider your letter as never written, it is the greatest kindness you can do me; and, above all, I beg you will not take my father into your confidence. With a sad sense of the pain my words must cause you, I remain for all time your faithful friend and obedient servant,

CORNELIA MORAN.

Then she rang for a lighted candle, and while waiting for its arrival neatly folded her letters. Her white wax and seal were at hand, and she delayed the servant until she had closed and addressed them.

"You will take Lieutenant Hyde's letter first," she said; "and make no delay about it, for it is very important. Mr. Van Ariens' note you can deliver as you return."

As soon as this business was quite out of her hands, she sank with a happy sigh into a large comfortable chair; let her arms drop gently, and closed her eyes to think over what she had done. She was quite satisfied. She was sure that no length of reflection could have made her decide differently. She had Hyde's letter in her bosom, and she pressed her hand against it, and vowed to her heart that he was worthy of her love, and that he only should have it. As for Rem, she had a decided feeling of annoyance, almost of fear, as he entered her mind. She was angry that he had chosen that day to urge his unwelcome suit, and thus thrust his personality into Hyde's special hour.

"He always makes himself unwelcome," she thought, "he ever has the way to come when he was least wanted; but Joris! Oh there is nothing I would alter in him, even at the cost of a wish! JORIS! JORIS!" and she let the dear name sweeten her lips, while the light of love brightened and lengthened her eyes, and spread over her lovely face a blushing glow.

After a while she rose up and adorned herself for her lover's visit. And when she entered the parlor Mrs. Moran looked at her with a little wonder. For she had put on with her loveliest gown a kind of bewildering prettiness. There was no cloud in her eyes, only a glow of soft dark fire. Her soul was in her face, it spoke in her bright glances, her sweet smiles, and her light step; it softened her speech to music, it made her altogether so delightful that her mother thought "Fortune must give her all she wishes, she is so charming."

The tea tray was brought in at five o'clock, but Doctor Moran had not returned, and there was in both women's hearts a little sense of disappointment. Mrs. Moran was wondering at his unusual delay, Cornelia feared he would be too weary and perhaps, too much interested in other matters to permit her lover to speak. "But even so," she thought, "Joris can come again. To-night is not the only opportunity."

It was nearly seven o'clock when the doctor came, and Cornelia was sure her lover would not be much behind that hour; but tea time was ever a good time to her father, he was always amiable and gracious with a cup in his hand, and the hour after it when his pipe kept him company, was his best hour. She told her heart that things had fallen out better than if she had planned them so; and she was so thoughtful for the weary man's comfort, so attentive and so amusing, that he found it easy to respond to the happy atmosphere surrounding him. He had a score of pleasant things to tell about the fashionable exodus to Philadelphia, about the handsome dresses that had been shown him, and the funny household dilemmas that had been told him. And he was much pleased because Harry De Lancey had been a great part of the day with him, and was very eloquent indeed about the young man's good sense and good disposition, and the unnecessary, and almost cruel, confiscation of property his family had suffered, for their Tory principles.

And in the midst of the De Lancey lamentation, seven o'clock struck and Cornelia began to listen for the shutting of the garden gate, and the sound of Hyde's step upon the flagged walk. It did not come as soon as she hoped it would, and the minutes went slowly on until eight struck. Then the doctor was glooming and nodding, and waking up and saying a word or two, and relapsing again into semi-unconsciousness. She felt that the favourable hour had passed, and now the minutes went far too quickly. Why did he net come? With her work in her hand-making laborious stitches by a drawn thread--she sat listening with all her being. The street itself was strangely silent, no one passed, and the fitful talk at the fireside seemed full of fatality; she could feel the influence, though she did not inquire of her heart what it was, of what it might signify.

Half-past eight! She looked up and caught her mother's eyes, and the trouble and question in them, and the needle going through the fine muslin, seemed to go through her heart. At nine the watching became unbearable. She said softly "I must go to bed. I am tired;" but she put away with her usual neatness her work, and her spools of thread, her thimble and her scissors. Her movement in the room roused the doctor thoroughly. He stood up, stretched his arms outward and upward, and said "he believed he had been sleeping, and must ask their pardon for his indifference." And then he walked to the window and looking out added "It is a lovely night but the moon looks like storm. Oh!"--and he turned quickly with the exclamation--"I forgot to tell you that I heard a strange report to-day, nothing less than that General Hyde returned on the Mary Pell this morning, bringing with him a child."

"A child!" said Mrs. Moran.

"A girl, then, a little mite of a creature. Mrs. Davy told me the Captain carried her in his arms to the carriage which took them to Hyde Manor."

"And how should Mrs. Davy know?"

"The Davys live next door to the Pells, and the servants of one house carried the news to the other house. She said the General sent to his son's lodging to see if he was in town, but he was not. It was then only eight o'clock in the morning."

"How unlikely such a story is! Do you believe it?"

"Ask to-morrow. As for me, I neither know nor care. That is the report. Who can tell what the Hydes will do?"

Then Cornelia said a hasty "good-night" and went to her room. She was sick at heart; she trembled, something in her life had lost its foot- hold, and a sudden bewildering terror--she knew not how to explain--took possession of her. For once she forgot her habitual order and neatness; her pretty dress was thrown heedlessly across a chair, and she fell upon her knees weeping, and yet she could not pray.

Still the very posture and the sweet sense of help and strength it implied, brought her the power to take into consideration such unexpected news, and such unexplained neglect on her lover's part, "General Hyde has returned; that much I feel certain of," she thought, "and Joris must have left Hyde Manor about the time his father reached New York. Joris would take the river road, being the shortest, his father would take the highway as the best for the carriage. Consequently, they passed each other and did not know it. Then Joris has been sent for, and it was right and natural that he should go--but oh, he might have written!--ten words would have been enough--It was right he should go--but he might have written!--he might have written!"--and she buried her face in her pillow and wept bitterly. Alas! Alas! Love wounds as cruelly when he fails, as when he strikes; and even when Cornelia had outworn thought and feeling, and fallen into a sorrowful sleep, she was conscious of this failure, and her soul sighed all night long "He might have written!"

CHAPTER IX

MISDIRECTED LETTERS

The night so unhappy to Cornelia was very much more unhappy to Hyde. He had sent his letter to her before eleven in the morning, and if Fortune were kind to him, he expected an answer soon after leaving Madame Jacobus. Her departure from New York depressed him very much. She had been the good genius of his love, but he told himself that it had now "grown to perfection, and could, he hoped, stand in its own strength." Restlessly he watched the hours away, now blaming, now excusing, anon dreaming of his coming bliss, then fidgeting and fearing disappointment from being too forward in its demanding. When noon passed, and one o'clock struck, he rang for some refreshment; for he guessed very accurately the reason of delay.

"Cornelia has been visiting or shopping," he thought; "and if it were visiting, no one would part with her until the last moment; so then if she get home by dinner-time it is as much as I can expect. I may as well eat, and then wait in what patience I can, another hour or two--yes, it will be two hours. I will give her two hours--for she will be obliged to serve others before me. Well, well, patience is my penance."

But in truth he expected the letter to be in advance of three o'clock. "Twenty words will answer me," he thought; "yes, ten words; and she will find or make the time to write them;" and between this hope and the certainty of three o'clock, he worried the minutes away until three struck. Then there was a knock at his door and he went hastily to answer it. Balthazar stood there with the longed-for letter in his hand. He felt first of all that he must be quite alone with it. So he turned the key and then stood a moment to examine the outside. A letter from Cornelia! It was a joy to see his own name written by her hand. He kissed the superscription, and kissed the white seal, and sank into his chair with a sigh of delight to read it.

In a few moments a change beyond all expression came over his face-- perplexity, anger, despair cruelly assailed him. It was evident that some irreparable thing had ruined all his hopes. He was for some moments dumb. He felt what he could not express, for a great calamity had opened a chamber of feeling, which required new words to explain it. This trance of grief was followed by passionate imprecations and reproaches, wearing themselves away to an utter amazement and incredulity. He had flung the letter to the floor, but he lifted it again and went over the cruel words, forcing himself to read them slowly and aloud. Every period was like a fresh sentence of death.

"'YOUR LETTER HAS GIVEN ME VERY GREAT SORROW;' let me die if that is not what she says; 'VERY GREAT SORROW. YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN FOR WEEKS, EVEN MONTHS, THAT MARRIAGE BETWEEN US WAS IMPOSSIBLE;' am I perfectly in my senses? 'IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE;' why, 'tis heart treason of the worst kind! Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Can I bear it? Oh Cornelia! Cornelia! 'WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY.' Oh it is piteous, sad. So young, so fair, so false! and she 'GRIEVES AT MY GOING AWAY,' and bids me on 'NO ACCOUNT CALL ON HER FATHER'--and takes pains to tell me the 'NO IS ABSOLUTE'--and I am not to 'BLAME HER.' Oh this is the vilest treachery! She might as well have played the coquette in speech as