satellites, and would do to play off against each other when there was nothing better for amusement. “To these people Mr. Haverleigh had explained that there was a Mrs. Haverleigh, a sweet, unfortunate young creature, who was hopelessly insane. She was perfectly harmless, and quiet, and ladylike, he said, and might easily be taken for a rational woman, unless she got upon the subject of her sanity. Then she would probably declare that she was sane, and kept at Chateau d’Or against her will, and that her friends knew nothing of her fate, as none of her letters ever reached them, and none of theirs reached her. Of course, all this was false, he said, as she was free to write as often as she pleased, while he always showed her whatever he thought she ought to see from home. When the sad news of her mother’s death reached him, he had withheld it for a time, thinking it better so, but he had told her at last, and the result was as he had feared, an aggravation of her malady and a state of deep despondency from which she was seldom roused. He did not know what effect so much gayety and dissipation would have upon her, but he hoped the best, and trusted to their good sense not to talk with her of her trouble, or to credit anything she might say with regard to him. He repeated all this with a most grieved expression upon his face, as if his burden was almost heavier than he could bear, and the younger ladies were deeply sorry and pitiful for the man upon whose life so great a blight had fallen.