“I know not how it is,” replied Alice; “but I felt that the expression of his eye, during our last interview, oppressed me excessively; it was never off me. There was a killing--a malignant influence in it, that thrilled through me with pain; but, perhaps, I can account for that. As it is, he has asked leave to visit us as usual, and to stand, with respect to me, in the light of a friend only. So far as I am concerned, papa, I could not refuse him a common privilege of civility; but, to tell you both the truth, I shall always meet him not only with reluctance, but with something almost amounting to fear.” Woodward, now that he had learned his fate, and was aware that his brother stood between him and his expectations, experienced a feeling of vengeance against him and Alice, which he neither could, nor attempted to, restrain. The rage of his mother, too, when she heard that the latter had rejected him, and avowed her attachment to Charles, went beyond all bounds. Her son, however, who possessed a greater restraint upon his feelings, and was master of more profound hypocrisy and cunning, requested her to conceal the attachment of Alice to his brother, as a matter not to be disclosed on any account. “Leave me to my resources,” said he, “and it will go hard or I will so manage Charles as to disentangle him from the consequences of her influence over him. But the families, mother, must not be for the present permitted to visit again. On the contrary, it is better for our purposes that they should not see each other as formerly, nor resume their intimacy. If you suffer your passions to overcome you, even in our own family, the consequence is that you prevent us both from playing our game as we ought, and as we shall do. Leave Charles to me; I shall make O'Connor of use, too; but above all things do not breathe a syllable to any one of them of my having been thrown off. I think, as it is, I have damped her ardor for him a little, and if she had not been obstinate and foolishly romantic, I would have extinguished it completely. As it is, I told her to leave the truth of what I mentioned to her respecting him, to time, and if she does I shall rest satisfied. Will you now be guided by me, my dear mother?” “I will endeavor to do so,” she replied; “but it will be a terrible restraint upon me, and I scarcely know how I shall be able to keep myself calm. I will try, however; the object is worth it. You know if she dies without issue the property reverts to you.” “Yes, mother, the object is worth much more than the paltry sacrifice I ask of you. Keep yourself quiet, then, and we will accomplish our purposes yet. I shall set instruments to work who will ripen our projects, and, I trust, ultimately accomplish them.” “Why, what instruments do you intend to use?”