"Do you mean that Mrs. or Miss Ashleigh
recoils from the engagement with me, and that I
should meanly compel them both to fulfil it by
calling in the public to censure them— if—if———
Oh, madam, this is worldly artifice indeed!"

"Be good enough to listen to me quietly. I
have never yet showed you the letter to Mrs.
Ashleigh, written by Lady Haughton, and
delivered by Mr. Vigors. That letter I will now
show to you; but before doing so I must enter
into a preliminary explanation. Lady Haughton
is one of those women who love power, and
cannot obtain it except through wealth and
station— by her own intellect never obtain it.
When her husband died she was reduced from
an income of twelve thousand a year to a jointure
of twelve hundred, but with the exclusive
guardianship of a young son, a minor, and adequate
allowances for the charge; she continued, therefore,
to preside as mistress over the establishments
in town and country; still had the
administration of her son's wealth and rank. She
stinted his education, in order to maintain her
ascendancy over him. He became a brainless
prodigal— spendthrift alike of health and fortune.
Alarmed, she saw that, probably, he would
die young and a beggar; his only hope of reform
was in marriage. She reluctantly resolved to
marry him to a penniless, well-born, soft-minded
young lady whom she knew she could control:
just before this marriage was to take place he
was killed by a fall from his horse. The Haughton
estate passed to his cousin, the luckiest
young man alive; the same Ashleigh Sumner
who had already succeeded, in default of male
issue, to poor Gilbert Ashleigh's landed
possessions. Over this young man Lady Haughton
could expect no influence. She would be a
stranger in his house. But she had a niece!
Mr. Vigors assured her the niece was beautiful.
And if the niece could become Mrs. Ashleigh
Sumner, then Lady Haughton would be a less
unimportant Nobody in the world, because she
would still have her nearest relation in a Somebody
at Haughton Park. Mr. Vigors had his
own pompous reasons for approving an alliance
which he might help to bring about. The first
step towards that alliance was obviously to bring
into reciprocal attractions the natural charms of
the young lady and the acquired merits of the
young gentleman. Mr. Vigors could easily induce
his ward to pay a visit to Lady Haughton, and
Lady Haughton had only to extend her invitations
to her niece; hence the letter to Mrs.
Ashleigh, of which Mr. Vigors was the bearer,
and hence my advice to you, of which you can
now understand the motive. Since you thought
Lilian Ashleigh the only woman you could love,
and since I thought there were other women in
the world who might do as well for Ashleigh
Sumner, it seemed to me fair for all parties that
Lilian should not go to Lady Haughton's in
ignorance of the sentiments with which she had
inspired you. A girl can seldom be sure that
she loves until she is sure that she is loved.
And now," added Mrs. Poyntz, rising and walking
across the room to her bureau— " now I will
show you Lady Haughton's invitation to Mrs.
Ashleigh. Here it is!"

I ran my eye over the letter, which she thrust
into my hand, resuming her knitwork while I
read.

The letter was short, couched in conventional
terms of hollow affection. The writer blamed
herself for having so long neglected her brother's
widow and child; her heart had been wrapped up
too much in the son she had lost; that loss had
made her turn to the ties of blood still left to
her; she had heard much of Lilian from their
common friend, Mr. Vigors; she longed to
embrace so charming a niece. Then followed the
invitation and the postscript. The postscript
ran thus, so far as I can remember: " Whatever
my own grief at my irreparable bereavement, I
am no egotist, I keep my sorrow to myself. You
will find some pleasant guests at my house,
among others our joint connexion, young
Ashleigh Sumner."

"Women's postscripts are proverbial for their
significance," said Mrs. Poyntz, when I had
concluded the letter and laid it on the table;
"and if I did not at once show you this
hypocritical effusion, it was simply because at the
name Ashleigh Sumner its object became
transparent, not perhaps to poor Anne Ashleigh nor
to innocent Lilian; but to my knowledge of the
parties concerned, as it ought to be to that
shrewd intelligence which you derive partly
from nature, partly from the insight into life
which a true physician cannot fail to acquire.
And if I know anything of you, you would have
romantically said, had you seen the letter at first,
and understood its covert intention, ' Let me not
shackle the choice of the woman I love, and to
whom an alliance so coveted in the eyes of the
world might, if she were left free, be proffered.'"

"I should not have gathered from the
postscript all that you see in it, but had its purport
been so suggested to me, you are right, I should
have so said. Well, and as Mr. Margrave tells
me that you informed him that I have a rival, I
am now to conclude that the rival is Mr.
Ashleigh Sumner?"

"Has not Mrs. Ashleigh or Lilian mentioned
him in writing to you?"

"Yes, both; Lilian very slightly; Mrs.
Ashleigh with some praise, as a young man of high
character, and very courteous to her."

"Yet, though I asked you to come and tell
me who were the guests at Lady Haughton's,
you never did so."

"Pardon me; but of the guests I thought
nothing, and letters addressed to my heart seemed
to me too sacred to talk about. And Ashleigh
Sumner then courts Lilian! How do you know?"

"I know everything that concerns me; and here,
the explanation is simple. My aunt, Lady
Delafield, is staying with Lady Haughton. Lady
Delafield is one of the women of fashion who shine
by their own light; Lady Haughton shines by