"As Mr. William Arkell. How pleasant his manner is! And, Charlotte, who is that young lady down there? I did not quite understand. What a sweet face she has!" "You never do understand. It is the cousin: Mildred. _She_ thought to be Mrs. William Arkell," continued Charlotte, triumphantly. "The very first night I came here I saw it as plain as glass, and I took my resolution--to disappoint her. She has been loving William all her life, and fully meant him to marry her. I said I'd supplant her, and I've done it; and I know our marriage is just breaking her heart." Betsey Travice--than whom one more generous-hearted, more unselfishly forgetful of self-interest, more earnestly single-minded, did not exist--felt frightened at the avowal. Had it been possible for her to recoil from her imperious sister, she had recoiled then. "Oh, Charlotte!" was all she uttered. "Why, you don't think I should allow so good a match to escape me, if I could help it! And, besides, I love him," added Charlotte, in a deeper voice. "But if----oh, Charlotte! pardon me for speaking--I cannot help it--if that sweet young lady loved him before you came? had loved him for years?" "Well?" said Charlotte, equably. "It _cannot_ be right of you to take him from her." "Right or not right, I have done it," said Charlotte, with a passing laugh. "But it _is_ right, for he loves me, and not her." "What will she do?" cried Betsey, after a pause of concern; and it seemed that she asked the question of her own heart, not of Charlotte. "Dwindle down into an old maid," was the careless answer: spoken, it is to be hoped, more in carelessness than heartlessness. "There, that's enough. Have you seen anything of Mrs. Nicholson?" resumed Charlotte. "We have seen her a great many times, Charlotte; she has been very troublesome to Mrs. Dundyke. She wanted your address here: but for me, Mrs. Dundyke would have given it to her. She said--but, perhaps, I had better not tell it you." "What who said? Mrs. Dundyke? Oh, you may tell anything _she_ said. I know her delight was to abuse me." "No, no, Charlotte; it never was. She only said it was not right of you to order so many new things when you were coming here, unless you could pay for them. I went to Mrs. Nicholson and paid her a sovereign off the account." "How did you get the sovereign?" "Mrs. Dundyke made me a present of it--as a little recompense for my work, she said. I did not so very much want anything for myself, for I had just had new shoes, and I had not worn my best clothes; so I took it to Mrs. Nicholson." Did the young girl's generosity strike no chord of gratitude in Charlotte's heart? This money, owing to Mrs. Nicholson, a fashionable dressmaker, had been Charlotte's worry during her visit. She would soon have it in her power to pay now.