"She made as great a fool of _you_ as of _me_, Priscilla," is the squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,--the treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little secret drawer, bound round with the orthodox blue ribbon, and smelling sadly of dust, as though to remind one of all things, of warmest sweetest love, of truest trust, and indeed of that fair but worthless body from whose hand it came, now lying mouldering and forgotten in a foreign land. "Oh, I wouldn't have believed it of her!" says Miss Priscilla, weeping bitterly. "But there must have been something wrong with her always, though we could never see it. What an angel face she had! But the children, they speak terribly of her, and they say--that she--and James Beresford--did not get on at all." "Eh?" says the squire. He rises himself on his sound elbow, and quite a glow of color rushes into his pallid cheeks. When, with a groan of self-contempt, he sinks back again, and the light in his eye (was it of satisfaction?) dies. "You have met Brian," he says presently. "What do you think of him, Priscilla? He is a good lad,--a _very_ good lad." "He looks it," says Miss Priscilla, shortly. "He does," heartily. "Well, I'm told this boy of mine is in love with your girl." "Who told you?" says Miss Priscilla. "Brian himself," says the Squire. "I like that in him," says Miss Priscilla. "Well, George, if you will look upon that as settled, so shall I." "So be it," says the squire--"Eh, my dear? but doesn't it make us feel old to be discussing the love-affairs of these young things, when it seems only yesterday that we--that you and I, Priscilla----" "That is all buried long ago: don't rake it up. It died when first your eyes fell on _her_," says Miss Blake, hurriedly. "I was a fool," says the squire. "But, somehow, since I have been talking to you, I don't think I'm going to die this time, and old scenes came back to me, and--I suppose it is too late now, Priscilla?" There is no mistaking his meaning. "Oh, yes; a whole lifetime too late," says Miss Priscilla, with a soft, faint blush that would not have misbecome a maiden in her teens. "But I am glad we are friends again, George." She pressed his hand with real affection, and then colors again warmly, as though afraid of having discovered herself in the act of committing an indiscretion. Could that gentle pressure be called forward, or light, or unseemly? Terrible thought! "So am I, my dear," says the squire. And then again, "You won't think of it, then, Priscilla?"