"Do you mean that you have not read or heard them all this time?" "Not a word for these three months. We have scarcely seen her for many weeks past; and then she merely showed us what long letters you wrote her." "And they were all written for you! She told me, the last time I was here, that she could keep nothing from you: and, relying upon her words, I have supposed this to be a medium of communication between us throughout. I could have no other, you know. When did my mother leave off reading my letters to you?" "From the week you went away last. Mrs Rowland came in while we were in the midst of one; and the consequence was--" "That you have been in the dark about me ever since. You saw that I did write?" "Yes. I have seen most of the post-marks--and the interiors--upside down. But Mrs Rowland was always there--or else Phoebe." "And have you really known nothing about me whatever?" "Little George told me that you had lessons to learn, very hard and very long, and, if possible, more difficult than his." "And did not you see then that I was acting upon your views?" "I supposed Miss Bruce might have had them first." "Miss Bruce!" he cried, in a tone of annoyance. "I know nothing of Miss Bruce's views on any subject. I cannot conceive how my sister got such a notion into her head--why she selected her." Margaret was going to mention the "sisterly affection" which had long subsisted between Miss Bruce and Mrs Rowland, according to the latter; but it occurred to her that it was just possible that Philip might not be altogether so indifferent to Miss Bruce as Miss Bruce was to him; and this thought sealed her lips. "I wonder whether Rowland believed it all the time," said Philip: "and Hope? It was unworthy of Hope's judgment--of his faith--to view the case so wrongly." "I am glad you are beginning to be angry with somebody else," said Margaret. "Your wrath seemed all to be for me: but your old friends, even to your mother, appear to have had no doubt about the matter." "There is an excuse for them which I thought you had not. I am an altered man, Margaret--you cannot conceive how altered since I began to know you. They judged of me by what I was once... We will not say how lately." "I assure you I do not forget the accounts you used to give of yourself." "What accounts?" "Of how you found life pleasant enough without philosophy and without anything to do... and other wise sayings of the kind." "It is by such things that those who knew me long ago have judged me lately--a retribution which I ought not to complain of. If they believed me fickle, idle, selfish, it is all fair. Oh! Margaret, men know nothing of morals till they know women." "Are you serious?"