That reminded Elvira to open the note, and as she read it her great eyes grew round. “SWEETEST AND DEAREST,--How I have always loved, and always shall love you, you know full well. But these altered circumstances bring about what you have so often playfully wished. Say the word and you are free, no longer bound to me by anything that has passed between us, though the very fibres of my heart and life are as much as ever entwined about you. Honour bids my dissolution of our engagement, and I await your answer, though nothing can ever make me other than “Your wholly devoted, “ALLEN.” Mrs. Evelyn had been prepared by a letter from her friend for what was now taking place; Mr. Wakefield had likewise known the main purport of Allen’s note, and had allowed that Mr. Brownlow could not as a gentleman do otherwise than release the young lady; though he fully believed that it would be only as a matter of form, and that Elvira would not hear of breaking off. He had in fact spent much eloquence in persuading Mrs. Brownlow to continue to take the charge of the heiress during the three years before her majority. Begun in generous affection by Allen long ago, the engagement seemed to the lawyer, as well as to others, an almost providential means of at least partial restitution. He had meant Elvira to read her letter alone, but she had opened it before the two ladies, and her first exclamation was a startled, incredulous-- “Ha! What’s this? He says our engagement is dissolved.” “He is of course bound to set you free, my dear,” said Mrs. Evelyn, “but it only depends on yourself.” “Oh! and I shall tease him well first,” cried Elvira, her face lighting up with fun and mischief. “He was so tiresome and did bother so! Now I shall have my swing! Oh, what fun! I won’t let him worry me again just yet, I can tell him!” “You don’t seem to consider,” began Sydney,--but Mrs. Gould took this moment for advancing. From the whole length of the large drawing-room the trio had been spectators, not quite auditors, though perhaps enough to perceive what line the Evelyns were taking. So Mrs. Gould advanced into the drawing-room; Mrs. Evelyn came forward to assume the duties of hostess; and Sydney turned and ran away so precipitately that she shut the door on the trailing skirt of her habit and had to open it again to release herself.