But the faint mournful smile did not perhaps escape the observation of her humble visitor, or fail to touch the scarce less delicate sympathies of one doubly refined in the furnace of affliction. Jane Marryott could not repress a glance of anxious interest on the pale young lady's face, as at the close of her own recital, she respectfully proceeded to express her wishes for the health and happiness of her brother and herself. She had heard, she continued timidly to say, that Mr. Eugene Trevor was the favoured gentleman who was to make Miss Seaham his wife--then paused, humbly apologising if she had offended by her boldness, for she marked the momentary spasm of painful emotion which passed over Mary's countenance. She would not have ventured to speak on the subject she added, had it not been for the interest, painful though it had become in its character, which bound her to that family. Mr. Eugene Trevor being as Miss Seaham probably was aware, her foster-brother. Mary bent her head in sign of acquiescence, and then murmuring that Jane Marryott had not offended, enquired in a low and faltering voice if she had been thrown much in contact with the Trevor family of late years, that if so, she would be much obliged by any particulars respecting it: she need not fear to speak freely on a subject which indeed was one of such peculiar interest to herself, though not now in the manner to which Jane had made allusion. She had indeed been long engaged to Mr. Eugene Trevor, but----. Mary felt not strength to complete the communication; her voice died away, leaving her listener to frame her own conclusions from the dejected pause and broken sentence.