It was so cold and damp in the morning, that Rachel, in virtue of her nursely prerogatives, forbade her mistress' rising before breakfast. Ida was not averse to keeping her room. She wished to achieve another victory over herself before meeting Josephine. A suspicion of her agency in Mr. Lacy's deception ripened, upon reflection, into a certainty, her love of justice prompted her to banish. But a hundred incidents occurred to her memory. Especially, she recollected that Josephine had accosted him, directly after she had taken Lynn's arm in the Fair-room, that she was still with him at the close of the evening, and that he had looked sorrowfully--reproachfully at her. She had no just conception of the girl's total destitution of principle, nor of her envy of herself; but she knew her to be weak, vain and spiteful; and against her will, she had to credit a conclusion, she judged uncharitable. She did not desire to ascertain its truth; it could make no difference at this late date. Another perplexity assailed her;--should she tell Josephine of the visit she had had? Should she hear of it from some other source, or by a direct inquiry of herself, whether she had spent the evening alone--what conjectures might not be formed as to the motive of her silence? She was deliberating thus, when the door flew back, and Josephine walked in. Ida, nervously excitable, started from her pillow; and clasped her hands in speechless alarm at the suddenness and disorder of her appearance. She was frightfully pallid, and her eyes were inflamed with weeping and rage. Locking the door, she advanced to the foot of the bed, and grasped the post tightly, as if to brace herself for some desperate act. Ida could not stir, and the two regarded each other for a moment without a word. Josephine was torn by some fearful conflict: Ida had never seen her eyes dimmed by a tear; and when the struggle for language ended in a tempestuous burst of weeping, the thought flashed over her, that she was bereft of reason. "Josephine! what has happened?" she could scarcely utter. Josephine dashed off the thick-coming drops. "Happened! yes! it will not matter to you, who can leave this abominable place in two years--or to-morrow, if you choose to have your own way. _I_ am to stay, and be pushed about, and lectured and ruled by a hideous vixen! I could kill her, and him too!" "Are you raving? Who is it?" "His wife! the dotard! the foolish old greybeard!" "Josephine! you cannot mean your father!" "I do mean him; and he _is_ a doting fool, to be playing the sighing lover at his age--and to whom? A baby-faced chit, just out of her teens! a spoiled doll of a thing whose prattle and tricks have addled his brains--if he ever had any. I won't stay here! I will beg my bread in the street first!" "But he is not married yet; you may be mistaken. How did your hear it?"