Celia dropped the curtain, and put her hand to her throat. It startled her to find him so near and so still. Softly, stealthily, she lay down again and closed her eyes. She must not waken him. She would have as long a time to herself as was possible, and try to think of her dear mother and her precious brother. Oh, if she were just going away from them alone, how well she could bear it! But to be going with one whom she had always almost hated---- Her brother’s happy words about George suddenly came to her mind. Jefferson had thought him fine. Well, of course the dear boy knew nothing about it. He had not read all those letters--those awful letters. He did not know the threats--the terrible language that had been used. She shuddered as she thought of it. But in the same breath she was glad that her brother had been deceived. She would not have it otherwise. Her dear ones must never know what she had gone through to save them from disgrace and loss of fortune--disgrace, of course, being the first and greatest. She had feared that George would let them see through his veneer of manners, and leave them troubled, but he had made a better appearance than she had hoped. Ten years had made a greater change in him than she had expected. He really had not been so bad as her conjured image of him. Then a sudden desire to look at him again seized her, to know once for all just how he really did seem. She would not want to notice him awake any more than she could help, nor dare, lest he presume upon her sudden interest, to act as if he had never offended; but if she should look at him now as he lay asleep she might study his face and see what she really had to expect. She fought the desire to peer at him again, but finally it gained complete possession of her, and she drew back the curtain once more. He was lying just as quietly as before. His heavy hair, a little disordered on the pillow, gave him a noble, interesting appearance. He did not seem at all a fellow of whom to be afraid. It was incredible that he could have written those letters. She tried to trace in his features a likeness to the youth of ten years ago, whom she had known when she was but a little girl, who had tied her braids to her chair, and put raw oysters and caterpillars down her back, or stretched invisible cords to trip her feet in dark places; who made her visits to a beloved uncle--whom he also had the right to call uncle, though he was no cousin of hers--a long list of catastrophes resulting in tears; who had never failed to mortify her on all occasions possible, and once---- But the memories were too horrible as they crowded one upon another! Let them be forgotten!