Mrs. Vincent's mind was easier when this epistle was out of her hands. She stood up before the mirror to take off her bonnet, and put her cap tidy; she glided across the room to take up the shawl and cloak which her son had flung upon the little sofa anyhow, and to fold them and lay them together on a chair. Then the trim little figure approached the table, on which stood a dimly burning lamp, which smoked as lamps will when they have it all their own way. Mrs. Vincent turned down the light a little, and then proceeded to remove the globe and chimney by way of seeing what was wrong--bringing her own anxious patient face, still retaining many traces of the sweet comeliness which had almost reached the length of beauty in her daughter, into the full illumination of the smoky blaze. Notwithstanding the smoke, the presence of that little woman made the strangest difference in the room. She took note of various evidences of litter and untidiness with her mind's eye as she examined the lamp. She had drawn a long breath of relief when she put the letter into Arthur's hand. The sense of lightened responsibility seemed almost to relieve her anxiety as well. She held the chimney of the lamp in her hand, when an exclamation from her son called her back to the consideration of that grievous question. She turned to him with a sudden deepening of all the lines in her face. "Oh, Arthur dear! don't you think it may be an enemy? don't you think it looks like some cruel trick? You don't believe it's true?" "Mother, have you an enemy in the world?" cried Vincent, with an almost bitter affectionateness. "Is there anybody living that would take pleasure in wounding you?" "No, dear; but Mr. Fordham might have one," said the widow. "He is not like you or your dear father, Arthur. He looks as if he might have been in the army, and had seen a great deal of life. That is what has been a great consolation to me. A man like that, you know, dear, is sure to have enemies; so very different from our quiet way of life," said Mrs. Vincent, holding up the chimney of the lamp, and standing a little higher than her natural five feet, with a simple consciousness of that grandeur of experience: "some one that wished him ill might have got some one else to write the letter. Hush, Arthur, here is the maid with the tea."