"Oh, dear, Archie, I thought you were never coming home!" she exclaimed. "And I have such news to tell you! There is a letter for you from Grace, and mother has written to me; and there is a note from Isabel inside, and she is engaged--really and truly engaged--to Mr. Ellis Burton; and the wedding is to be in six weeks, and you and I are to go down to it, and--oh, dear----" Here Mattie broke down, and began to sob with excitement and pleasure and the longing for sympathy. "Well, well, there is nothing to cry about!" returned Archie, roughly; and then his manner changed and softened in spite of himself; for after all, Isabel was his sister, and this was the first wedding in the family, and he could not hear such a piece of news unmoved. "Let me hear all about it," he said, by and by; and then he took poor hysterical little Mattie into the house, and gave her some wine, and was very kind to her, and listened to his mother's letter and Isabel's gushing effusion without a single sneer. "Poor little Belle; she does seem very happy!" he said, quite affectionately, as he turned up the lamp still more, and began Grace's letter. Mattie sat and gazed at him in a sort of ecstasy; but she did not venture to ask him to read it to her. How nice he was to-night, and how handsome he looked! there never was such a brother as Archie. But suddenly, as though he was conscious of being watched, he sat down by the table, and shaded his face with his hand. No, Mattie, was right in her surmise: he would not have cared to show that letter to any one.