“This is what I mean, uncle. You all along thought and hoped that Frank and I would some day take a fancy to each other. About that I have no reason to complain, nor that you deceived yourself into believing that things were turning out as you wished. What you were wrong in, my dear uncle, was, to have spoken to me as you did about Frank. What could I think? I could not suppose it possible that you were doing so merely upon the strength of your hopes upon the subject. I naturally concluded that you were in his confidence, that you had talked the matter over before he left England, and that although he or you might have thought it wrong to ask me to enter upon an engagement at the age of eighteen, and just as he was leaving England for two or three years, still that he perfectly intended to propose for me upon his return. What else could I think, uncle?” Captain Bradshaw was silent. He felt that he had been wrong, and that without sufficient cause he had led his niece to believe that Frank loved her, and had thus greatly endangered the happiness of his favourite. Once feeling himself to be wrong, no one could be more ready to admit it than Captain Bradshaw. “Upon my word, Alice,” he said, earnestly, “I never looked upon it in that light. I see that what you say is true, and that I have behaved like an old fool, as I am, in the matter. But even now it may not be too late—even now I may be able to persuade Frank——” “My dear uncle, you forget that I could not accept him under such conditions, and beside that, few men are less likely to be persuaded or forced in a matter of this sort than Frank is. It would be folly upon my part to pretend that I do not like him very much. I always believed that he cared for me; and I daresay, had he been very attentive when he returned, and made pretty speeches, and behaved well, I should not have, thrown any serious obstacle in the way of the fulfilment of your pet project. As it is, I find now that I have been mistaken all along as to the whole affair, and all I have to do is, to make myself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.” “I am afraid that I have done a great deal of harm,” the old man said, sadly, “and I can only say that I did not do it wilfully, for I certainly deceived myself as much as I did you; but that is a very poor consolation to me when I reflect that my thoughtless folly has made you miserable.”