“Of course it was a great risk bringing him here at all,” Jack thought of saying, that Mr. Brownlow might be brought to a due sense of his own responsibility in the matter; but after long consideration, he wisely reflected that it would be best to wait until the first parties to the transaction had pronounced themselves. If Sara did not mean to say any thing about it, nor Powys, why should he interfere? upon which conclusion, instead of going down stairs, he went to bed, thinking again how cheerless it was for each member of the household to start off like this without a single good-night, and how different it would be in the new household that was to come. Sara came to breakfast next morning looking very pale. The color had quite gone out of her cheeks, and she had done herself up in a warm velvet jacket, and had the windows closed as soon as she came into the room. “They never will remember that the summer’s over,” she said, with a shiver, as she took her place; but she made no farther sign of any kind. Clearly she had no intention of complaining of her rash lover;--so little, indeed, that when Mr. Brownlow was about to go away, she held out a book to him timidly, with a sudden blush. “Mr. Powys forgot to take this with him last night; would you mind taking it to him, papa?” she said, very meekly; and as Jack looked at her, Sara blushed redder and redder. Not that she had any occasion to blush. It might be meant as an olive-branch or even a pledge of hope; but still it was only a book that Powys had left behind him. Mr. Brownlow accepted the charge with a little surprise, and he, too, looked at her so closely that it was all she could do to restrain a burst of tears. “Is it such a wonder that I should send back a book when it is left?” she cried, petulantly. “You need not take it unless you like, papa; it can always go by the post.” “I will take it,” said Mr. Brownlow; and Jack sat by rather grimly, and said nothing. Jack was very variable and uncertain just at that moment in his own feelings. He had not forgotten the melting of his heart on the previous night; but if he had seen any tokens of relenting on the part of his sister toward the presumptuous stranger, Jack would have again hated Powys. He even observed with suspicion that his father took little notice of Sara’s agitation; that he shut his eyes to it, as it were, and took her book, and evaded all farther discussion. Jack himself was not going to Masterton that day. He had to see that every thing was in order for the next day, which was the 1st of September. So far had the season wheeled round imperceptibly while all the variations of this little domestic drama were ripening to their appointed end.