_Need_ you be told that that letter was really written to Eleanor? The words "fair _fiancée_" in it alone related to Rose, and Mr. Marlborough had penned them in laughing allusion to the joke in the school. The plot was Emma Mowbray's, a little bit of revenge on Eleanor and Rose, both of whom she envied and disliked. She had made Anna her tool. The child, at her prompting, wrote a letter to Rose, and got her brother to direct and seal it; and Emma Mowbray opened the two envelopes cleverly by means of passing a penknife under the seals, and substituted the one note for the other. Thus Eleanor's letter was conveyed to Rose; the other Emma Mowbray burnt; and she promised a whole _charrette_ full of good things to Anna to keep her counsel. Being a mischief-loving little damsel, Miss Anna did so; though she was nearly frightened out of it by Miss Carr. This may sound very shallow, very weak, but I assure you the circumstances took place just as they are described. Had George Marlborough only put Eleanor's _name_ in the note, the trick could not have been played. But he did not do so. And neither Rose nor Eleanor suspected for a moment that there was anything about the note not genuine; or that it had not been written to Rose. They went to dinner at Mrs. Marlborough's--Eleanor with her beating heart of resentment and her outraged love, Rose radiant with happiness and beauty. The evening did not mend matters, but rather added very much to the broil. May the word be forgiven?--I was thinking of the French one. Eleanor, cold, haughty, contemptuous, was almost insulting to Mr. Marlborough; and Rose, it is to be feared, let him see, that evening, where her best love was given. He took more than one opportunity of asking Eleanor how he had offended her, but he could get no answer. If she had only given him a clue to it, how much trouble and misery would have been saved! but the very _asking_ on his part seemed to Eleanor only adding insult to injury. You see they were all at cross-purposes, and just for the want of a little word of explanation.