"Didn't the minx, thinking the impostor who went to Seven-Oak was the colonel, try to renew her engagement, and did it, too. And didn't the old marquis come home from yachting, at Southampton, to find my lady in receipt of a letter from the jail-bird, which he insisted on seeing, as she was in hysterics over it? And wasn't my fine gentleman bidding his 'dear little Julie' good-by, as circumstances over which he had no control--an unavoidable engagement--had sent him to the Canterbury jail for a season. And if she still entertained the idea of an elopement, would she meet him on board the convict-ship which took him back to Tasmania? Or, failing that, had she any objections to come and see his hanging, which was the only entertainment of a public character he could ever hope to afford her?' "Fancy my dainty lady's feelings at getting a letter like that! And from the man whom she was so anxious to marry! Why, everybody's laughing at her folly; and her father is so angry that he has carried her off to Hautville Park for the rest of the winter, to hide her until he is less ashamed of her. "Now, don't you see how penetrating Alfred was, to find her shallowness out when she was trying her best to captivate him? He's the best brother in the world--the wisest and the kindest; and I wish you agreed with me, my darling, and would send me to the poor, quaking fellow with the word he longs to hear." "He deserves the love of a good wife," answered Margaret, with tears in her eyes. "But, dear Lady Dora, indeed I cannot marry him. Had all other things been equal, I do not love him as well as he ought to be loved." "That's enough, then," rejoined Lady Dora, rising wrathfully; "and if it's for the reason that ye've stated ye find it in your heart to be so hard, I'll not be grieving for me boy's sake, but for your own, with what's before ye, whether ye know it or not, with a man that'll find a way to break your heart for ye, hard as it is." Having finished with some tearful quaverings, she rushed out of the state-room, and the conference was at an end. Poor Margaret, with her usual humility felt much distressed at this unexpected episode, and cast about anxiously in her mind how she could best soothe the wounded feelings of the young duke and his warm-hearted sister. But she did not meet them until the next day, as they were steaming up the Narrows within sight of New York. While Margaret, with Davenport by her side, stood on the crowded quarter-deck, gazing at the beautiful city which was now the shrine of her devotion, the Duke of Piermont stood not far away among the throng of passengers, gazing, with his yearning love plainly speaking in his eyes, at the woman who had decreed to him his fate.