"I don't like the book," Nelly repeated, after a pause. "The writer seems to have strange ideas. The hero--a very poor hero--is false to the heroine. After getting engaged to her, he discovers that he can never love her as he loves another girl; and of course she releases him from the engagement when she finds out the truth. But instead of representing him as the worthless fellow that he was, the author persists in showing us that he became a good husband and father. He begins his career by an act of treachery; and yet he prospers, and is wonderfully happy with the wife of his choice! It is too bad." "Lewis Moore was not a treacherous man," said Mrs. Channell, quietly. "He made a great and terrible mistake. But sometimes it is not easy to distinguish between a blunder and a crime. The heroine--Alice--had grace given her to make that distinction. She saved him and herself from the effects of the blunder by setting him free. She bade him go and marry Margaret, because she saw that Margaret was the only woman who could make him happy." "He didn't deserve to be happy!" cried Nelly. "He ought to have been sure of himself before he proposed to Alice. If I had been in Alice's place I would have let him depart, but not with a blessing! She took it far too tamely. I would have let him see that I despised him." Mrs. Channell thought within herself that the young often believe themselves a thousand times harder-hearted than they are. Those who feel the bitterest wrath when they think of an injury that has never come to them are the most patient and merciful when they actually meet it face to face. But she did not say this to Nelly. The book was talked of no more that day; and for many a day afterwards it stood neglected on Mrs. Channell's shelves. Nelly had forgotten it after a night's sleep, and the next morning's post brought her a surprise. When she entered the breakfast-room her father was already seated at the table looking over his letters. He held up one addressed, in a legal-looking hand, to Miss Ellen Channell. "Who is your new correspondent, Nelly?" he asked. "This is something different from the young-ladyish epistles you are in the habit of receiving, isn't it?" "I don't know the writing," she said, opening it carelessly. But in the next minute she laid it hastily before him. "Read it, father," she cried. "Old Mr. Myrtle is dead, and has left me three thousand pounds! You remember how he made a pet of me in my school-days?" Mr. Channell read the letter in silence; and then he looked up quickly into his daughter's face, and put his hand on hers. "I hope no one is defrauded by this legacy," he said, gravely. "You will have quite enough without it, Nelly. Had Mr. Myrtle any relations?" "He used to say that he was quite alone in the world," she answered. "His house was next to our school, and the gardens joined; that was how I came to see so much of him. No one ever went to stay with him, and he seldom had even a caller."