Alice always received him with affection; and Elsie’s manner to him was earnest, affectionate, deferential, as if she wished to make up for her father’s coldness. She was no longer shy and diffident. It seemed as if the presentiment of some impending misfortune, which she felt rather than understood, had thrown down the barriers of her reserve, and that she could not do too much, in her sweet, feminine way, to assure Magnus of her unchangeable affection and unswerving truth. Her eyes waited on him, shyly, all day long, for her maiden pride was self-subdued, but not her maidenly delicacy. Elsie had no suspicion of what her father really meant until the morning of the day upon which Judge Wylie’s ball was to be given. General Garnet called Elsie into his room, and having explained in his polite way—he was polite even to his child—that circumstances beyond all human calculation or control had rendered it expedient that a new adjustment of affairs should take place, and that she must no longer look upon Magnus Hardcastle in the light of a suitor for her hand, but must, on the contrary, prepare herself to think of, and accept, Lionel Hardcastle, to whom he had given permission to visit her—Elsie opened wide her eyes in undisguised astonishment, that her father, her revered father, should ask her to break her plighted faith; but without one atom of terror, and without an instant’s hesitation, she answered: “Why, father, being engaged to Magnus, with yours and mother’s consent, I would no more forsake him now than if I were already his wedded wife.” “We shall see, Miss Garnet. I will give you time,” replied the General, in his soft, but sarcastic, manner. “Father,” said Elsie, her cheek burning with shame and indignation, “if I should give you to suppose that any lapse of time could alter my determination, I should be a coward or a hypocrite. Father, I would not have engaged myself without your consent and my mother’s, for I should have felt that to be wrong; but having engaged myself with your consent and blessing, I will not break that engagement, come what may. I promised, with your approbation, to give my hand to Dr. Hardcastle on Thursday week, and Thursday week, father, I must do it. Dr. Hardcastle has lost an inheritance; an event which he rejoices in, since it gives his uncle back a dearly beloved and long-lost son. But he must not lose his wife, father; he shall not.” General Garnet stood like one thunderstruck. His wife had never ventured to oppose his will, except “To plead, lament, and sue,”