“I believe I am only telling you the shameful truth,” Mrs. Payson had written, “when I add that the girl has been an inmate of Mr. Goldenheart’s cottage ever since. If you can reconcile this disgraceful state of things, with Mr. Rufus Dingwell’s assertion of his friend’s fidelity to his marriage-engagement, I have no right, and no wish, to make any attempt to alter your opinion. But you have asked for my advice, and I must not shrink from giving it. I am bound as an honest woman, to tell you that your uncle’s resolution to break off the engagement represents the course that I should have taken myself, if a daughter of my own had been placed in your painful and humiliating position.” There was still ample time to modify this strong expression of opinion by the day’s post. Rufus appealed vainly to Mrs. Payson to reconsider the conclusion at which she had arrived. A more charitable and considerate woman, within the limits of her own daily routine, it would not be possible to find. But the largeness of mind which, having long and trustworthy experience of a rule, can nevertheless understand that other minds may have equal experience of the exception to the rule, was one of the qualities which had not been included in the moral composition of Mrs. Payson. She held firmly to her own narrowly conscientious sense of her duty; stimulated by a natural indignation against Amelius, who had bitterly disappointed her--against Rufus, who had not scrupled to take up his defence. The two old friends parted in coldness, for the first time in their lives. Rufus returned to his hotel, to wait there for news from Amelius. The day passed--and the one visitor who enlivened his solitude was an American friend and correspondent, connected with the agency which managed his affairs in England. The errand of this gentleman was to give his client the soundest and speediest advice, relating to the investment of money. Having indicated the safe and solid speculation, the visitor added a warning word, relating to the plausible and dangerous investments of the day. “For instance,” he said, “there’s that bank started by Farnaby--” “No need to warn me against Farnaby,” Rufus interposed; “I wouldn’t take shares in his bank if he made me a present of them.” The American friend looked surprised. “Surely,” he exclaimed, “you can’t have heard the news already! They don’t even know it yet on the Stock Exchange.” Rufus explained that he had only spoken under the influence of personal prejudice against Mr. Farnaby. “What’s in the wind now?” he asked.