“Then the shortest and best way I have of telling it to you is, to beg you to read this letter, which contains all I know of the matter,” said Mr. Beaumont. “This letter is from young Birch to his parents; we have never heard a syllable directly from Walsingham himself on this subject. Since he reached Lisbon, we have had no letters from him, except that short epistle which brought us an account of his taking the treasure-ship. But we shall see him soon, and know the truth of this story; and hear whether he prefers his Spanish or his English mistress.” “‘Fore George! I wish this Spanish woman had stayed in her convent,” said Mr. Palmer; “I don’t like runaway ladies. But let us see what this letter says for her.” The letter is the same that Mr. Beaumont read some time ago, therefore it need not here be inserted. Before Mr. Palmer had finished perusing it, a second message came to say that the ladies waited tea, and that Mrs. Beaumont wished not to be late going home, as there was no moon. Mr. Palmer, nevertheless, finished the letter before he stirred: and then, with a heavy sigh, he rose and said, “I now wish, more than ever, that our captain would come home this night, before I go, and clear up this business. I don’t like this Spanish plot, this double intrigue. Ah, dear me!--I shall be obliged to sail--I shall be in Jamaica before the fifth act.” “How expectation loads the wings of time!” exclaimed Mrs. Beaumont, as the gentlemen entered the drawing-room. “Here we have been all day expecting our dear Captain Walsingham, and the time has seemed so long!--The only time I ever found long in this house.” “I should like to know,” said Mr. Walsingham, after a bow of due acknowledgment to Mrs. Beaumont for her compliment, “I should like to know whether time appears to pass more slowly to those that hope, or those that fear?” Mrs. Beaumont handed coffee to Mr. Palmer, without attempting to answer this question. “To those that hope, I should think,” said Mr. Palmer; “for hope long deferred maketh the heart sick; and time, I can answer for it, passes most slowly to those who are sick.” “‘Slow as the year’s dull circle seems to run, When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one,’” said Mr. Walsingham, smiling, as he looked at young Beaumont. “But I think it is the mixture of fear with hope that makes time appear to pass slowly.” “And is hope ever free from that mixture?” said Miss Walsingham. “Does not hope without fear become certainty, and fear without hope despair? Can hope ever be perfectly free from some mixture of fear?” “Oh, dear me! yes, to be sure,” said Miss Hunter; “for hope’s the most opposite thing that ever was to fear; as different as black and white; _for_, surely, every body knows that hope is just the contrary to fear; and when one says, _I hope_, one does not ever mean _I fear_--surely, you know, Mrs. Beaumont?”