He recoiled to the opposite counter, and I
laughingly continued:

"It is nearly the same thing, dear Mr. Ellesmere.
I am the only person to whom Anna has
confided her secret. I was very jealous; for her,
and wished to hear how you could explain your
neglect, but I can assure you she is far too gentle
and humble ever to blame you. She is not very
strong now, and you must be very quiet and
undemonstrative in your manner to her, for she is
a grave, modest girl, more sobered by the wear
and tear of life than many are. Come into the
sitting-room, she is alone there."

After thus cautioning him, I led him into the
room, with the simple announcement, "Anna,
here is a very old friend come to see you."
I expected timidity, and hesitations and
blushes, but Mr. Stephen opened his arms,
and she, overwhelmed with amazement, fluttered
into them like a weary bird into her nest.

I left the lovers together; myself meditating
on the singular anomalies in the human character,
and viewing my sister in particular under a
new phase.

Our blind father could not refuse his
approbation of Stephen and Anna's engagement, when,
he heard how admirably and determinately
Stephen had fitted himself for independence.
Mr. Ellesmere was furious at his son's constancy;
and as neither would give up his cherished plans
they parted in anger, and, in a few days, Stephen
left us for North Britain.

Before Mr. Trevor had been with us many
months, it became evident to us all that Ettie
had given to him the warm, impulsive, first love
of a young heart. It pleased him, and she
appeared to reciprocate it in a less ardent, somewhat
trifling manner. I had never grown
reconciled to him, and this manner, which he
could not conceal from me, increased my dislike.
We knew absolutely nothing of his former life
and associates: his letters, which would have
given me some clue to his friends and family,
never fell into my hands, for he was careful to
put them in, the bags without my observation.
When at our work in the office I never looked
at him without meeting his eye, as if he knew
instinctively that I suspected and watched him,
and he wished to baffle me. So, as the second
winter after my return home came on, I
procured a pair of thick blue glasses, under pretext
of the gaslight being painful to my eyes, and to
his evident annoyance I was thus enabled to
notice him and his movements unseen. My
father was well pleased with Trevor's declared
attachment to Ettie; he was almost angry when
I opposed it, and spoke of the clerk's earnest
piety; in this matter I had little influence, as
being suspected of a slight taint of continental
laxity in affairs of religion. Of course he
expected to be the future postmaster of Tonwell,
and my father believed that his business as
bookseller would soon revive in younger hands.
Ettie and Anna were therefore happy in their
engagements, and but for my perverse
misgivings our family would have had no troubles
but those arising from very limited means.

As one person could not discharge the night
duties, and the town postman was no longer
permitted to assist, it was still necessary for some
one to get up at three every morning to assist
Mr. Trevor. Anna was unable to continue her
exertions, and the work consequently fell upon
me. But our old nurse, who remained as our only
servant, was so much scandalised at this necessary
arrangement, and she so cordially entered
into my dislike of our head clerk, that she
persisted in rising always at the same hour, in
order to be near at hand. Her kitchen was
connected with the office by a high narrow door,
like those in very old houses, and I resisted
steadily every intimation of the deputy
surveyor's that this communication ought to be
closed.

Affairs were in this condition, when one morning,
before Anna was up, there came Stephen's
sharp, peculiar knock at the outer door, and he
entered with the exclamation, "Home once
more, my beloved An—Mary, I mean!"

I took him into Nanny's kitchen, where we
could be sure of being alone, and he confided to
me how a crisis in the business of his father's
bank had induced old Mr. Ellesmere to seek his
son's professional skill to aid him in extricating
himself from his difficulties. It was not publicly
known, but there was a general and growing
suspicion that the bank negotiations had been too
much left to subordinates; and daily increasing
calls upon them threatened an early panic'.

In this embarrassment, a friendly interest at
the post-office enabled the people of the bank to
post letters at the very latest moment, and to
receive them long before established hours in the
morning. Of course we were anxious to afford
them every help in our power. Old Mr. Ellesmere
was ashamed to remember how he had sought to
displace my father; but he conquered his feeling
so far as to come once or twice to acknowledge
his obligation to us: to our father he was
unaffectedly sympathising, and he treated us with
a gracious but somewhat distant politeness,
which awed and agitated Anna extremely, while
I, regarding him as a fellow-mortal, and
something more than a fellow-sinner, was so entirely
unembarrassed, that it was evident he felt more
at home and better pleased with me.

After a few days of great anxiety, Stephen
joined us one evening in Nanny's kitchen. Only
my sisters and I were there, and he told us that
his only hope of extricating his father from his
difficulties rested upon a large remittance, which,
he expected by the post two mornings hence.
While he was talking, Trevor's voice was heard
calling Ettie into the sitting-room. Stephen knew
of my dislike to him; but, as Anna disagreed with,
me on that single topic, he only laughed at my
prejudices. By a strange combination of
circumstances, he had never seen Trevor, and now,
at my suggestion, he stole out into our town
garden, guided by Anna's warm little hand, to
peep through the uncurtained window of the
sitting-room. There knelt Trevor, beside Ettie,
drawing down her head till her bright curls fell
upon his handsome face, and her whispering lips