But my kind intentions met a cruel rebuff. On the following morning I received a formal note in Miss Kingsley's handwriting, which stated that Mr. Spence had desired her to say that it was impossible for him to accept the money, and that she was my "obedient servant, Lucretia Kingsley." My attention was called by a friend the same day to a long item in the "Sunday Mercury," which while extolling the lecture of Mr. Spence at my house, and announcing that among the guests was the "authoress Miss Kingsley, who wore, etc." contained a disagreeable comment on what was called "the lavish luxury and lack of discriminating reverence for the best sentiments of the day, which characterized the principal parlors." The next time I went to see Aunt Agnes I received an explanation of this conduct, though my name had appeared once or twice before during the past few years in uncomplimentary paragraphs. She upbraided me at once with a renewed attempt to divert the attention of Mr. Spence from his labors to myself. Miss Kingsley had come to her with tears in her eyes, and described the Babylonian influences by which I had sought to seduce him. He had gone, she said, at the call of duty to accomplish what good he might, but never in the whole course of his professional experience had his words fallen on a more flinty and barren soil. And then, as if it were not enough to flaunt in the face of my old master the extravagances most hostile to the theories of which he was the advocate, I had sought to tempt him with money to become a perpetual presence at my immoderate receptions. "Bah!" exclaimed Aunt Agnes in the ardor of her indignation, as she finished the account of Miss Kingsley's narrative,--"bah! Trying to lead a sober life! Tell _me_! I hear on all sides that your house has become a hot-bed of all that is worldly and luxurious in the city. And not content with that, you are scheming to corrupt the one who in this money-worshipping age is faithful to principle. I am almost disposed to say for the last time, 'Go your own ways, and never come near me again.'" "Do not say that yet, Aunt Agnes. Wait a little," I answered, genuinely moved by the distress of the old lady. "If I were to wait until doomsday it would be still the same. You are no longer a child; and though you have Harlan blood in your veins, I am beginning to feel that I have wasted my best affections on a worthless subject. If you were my own daughter, I could not have been more unhappy on your account. Thank Heaven! I shall soon be in my grave."