Produced by David Edwards, Sue Fleming and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's Note. There were a number of printer's errors within the text which have not been altered. IT MAY BE TRUE. A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY MRS. WOOD. VOL. III. London: T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE, 1865. [THE RIGHT OF TRANSLATION IS RESERVED.] IT MAY BE TRUE. CHAPTER I. IS THERE A FATE IN IT? "The grief of slighted love, suppress'd, Scarce dull'd her eye, scarce heav'd her breast; Or if a tear, she strove to check, A truant tear stole down her neck, It seem'd a drop that, from his bill, The linnet casts, beside a rill, Flirting his sweet and tiny shower Upon a milk-white April flower:-- Or if a sigh, breathed soft and low, Escaped her fragrant lips; e'en so The zephyr will, in heat of day, Between two rose leaves fan its way." COLMAN. Amy had been some three weeks at home, and as yet there had been no improvement in Mrs. Neville's health to justify her daughter's return to Brampton. There was the same lassitude, the same weariness. She would lie on the sofa day after day, with no bodily ailment save that of weakness, and an utter inability to get better, and apparently with no wish to do so. She never complained, but was ever grateful and content. It was as if life were waning away imperceptibly, and her spirits, which had always bravely struggled through all her trials and sorrows, had at last sunk never to rise again. Amy seldom left her, but generally sat by her side, on a low footstool, reading or working. Sometimes Mrs. Neville would lay her hand gently on the fair masses of hair, and Amy, whose heart was very sorrowful, would hold her head lower still so that her tears might fall unseen.