come between us, I'll get on; and who knows
but ye may ride in your carriage yet. Folks do
get on, when they've a mind to, serious."

She looked up at him with fond admiring
eyes. She honoured him for his strength, all
the more because of her own weakness.

"I don't want no carriage," she murmured;
"I want nothing but you, George. 'Tisn't I,
you know, that wish things different—'tis
father——"

The moon had risen, the beautiful bright
September moon, nearly at the full; and its
light shone on the lovers as they retraced their
steps through the silent Southanger woods—
how solemn and lovely at that hour!—towards
Susan's home. And before they had reached
the gate of the Plashetts, her sweet face was
again bright with smiles, and it had been agreed
between them that to avoid a repetition of such
attempts on the part of Gibbs, and such scenes
with her father, she should propose to go to her
aunt's, Miss Jane Archer's, at Ormiston, for a
fortnight of the three weeks that yet remained
before the marriage should take place.

She acted on this idea, and George took advantage
of her absence to attend a sale on the
other side of the county, and procure certain
articles of furniture required for their new home.
Once away, he obtained leave to prolong his
stay with a friend till the time of Susan's
return. It was pleasanter for him not to be at
home at this period. His mother seemed to
grow more averse to his marriage, the nearer it
approached; declaring that no good could
possibly come of union with a girl who had been
too much waited upon and flattered, to make a
good wife for a plain hard-working man. These
remarks, indescribably galling to the lover
because not wholly without foundation, had given
rise to more than one dispute between his
mother and him, which had not tended to
diminish the half-unconscious dislike the good
woman felt towards her future daughter-in-law.

When George returned home after his
fortnight's holiday, he found, instead of the expected
letter from his betrothed announcing her arrival
at the Plashetts, one addressed to him in a strange
hand, and containing the following words:

   "George Eade, you are being done. Look to
G. G.
                                          "A WELL-WISHER."

Perplexed at so mysterious a communication,
he was somewhat annoyed to find that Gibbs
had quitted Cumner from the very day after his
own departure, and was still absent. This
struck him as remarkable; but Susan had
written him only a week before, a letter so full
of tenderness that he could not bring himself
to entertain a single doubt of her truth. But
on the very next morning, his mother handed
him a letter from Farmer Archer, enclosing
one from his sister, informing him that her
niece had left her house clandestinely two days
before, to be married to Mr. Gibbs. It appeared
that the girl had gone, as on previous occasions,
to spend the day with a cousin, and that not
returning at night, it was concluded she had settled
to sleep there. The next morning had brought,
instead of herself, the announcement of her
marriage.

On reading this news, George was at first
conscious of but one feeling. Utter incredulity.
There must be some error somewhere; the thing
could not be. While his father, with tears
in his honest eyes, exhorted him to bear up like
a man under this blow, and his mother indignantly
declared that a girl who could so conduct
herself was indeed a good riddance, he sat silent,
half stupified. Such a breach of faith seemed, to
his earnest and loyal nature, simply impossible.

Another half-hour brought confirmation that
could not be doubted. James Wilkins, Mr.
Gibbs's man-servant, came grinning and
important, with a letter for George, which had
been enclosed in one from his master to himself.
It was from Susan, and signed with her new name.

"I know," it said, "that for what I have
done, I shall be without excuse in your eyes—
that you will hate and despise me as much as you
have hitherto loved and trusted me. I know that
I have behaved to you very, very bad, and I
don't ask you to forgive me. I know you can't.
But I do ask you to refrain from vengeance. It
can't bring back the past. Oh, George! if ever
you cared for me, listen to what I entreat now.
Hate and despise me—I don't expect no other
—but don't you revenge my ill conduct on
anyone. Forget all about me—that's the best
thing for both of us. It would have been better
if we had never beheld one another."

Much more followed in the same strain—
weak, self-accusing, fearful of consequences—
wholly unworthy of George.

He gazed at the letter, holding it in those
strong sinewy hands that would have toiled for
her so hard and so faithfully. Then, without a
word, he held it out to his father, and left the
room. They heard him mount the narrow stairs,
lock himself into his little garret, and they
heard no more.

After a while his mother went to him.
Although personally relieved at her son's release,
that feeling was entirely absorbed in tender
and loving pity for what she knew must be his
sufferings. He was sitting by the little casement,
a withered branch of hops upon his knee.
She went and laid her cheek to his.

"Have patience, lad!" she said, with earnest
feeling. "Try—try—to have faith, and comfort'll
be sent ye in time. It's hard to bear, I know—
dreadful hard and bitter—but for the poor
parents' sakes who loves ye so dear, try and
bear it."

He looked up at her with cold tearless eyes.
"I will," he said, in a hard voice. "Don't ye
see I am trying?"

His glance was dull and hopeless. How she
longed that tears would come and relieve his
bursting heart!

"She wasn't worthy of ye, my boy. I always
told ye——"

But he stopped her with a stern gesture.

"Mother! Not a word o' that, nor of her,
from this hour. What she's done ain't so