At this moment, the postman’s well-known ring at the gate-bell, given with skilful force, resounded suddenly through the house. The noise made her start, and utter a faint scream. Her heart began to beat violently, while a strange presentiment seized her that the epistle which had arrived by this channel was for her. An emotion of dread oppressed her, for which she was at a loss to account, for she had but few correspondents, and among them there was not one whose communication ought to contain any matter to occasion her feelings of dread. She had forgotten one. She listened breathlessly for the light foot-fall of Chayter. She was not disappointed. The door opened, and her quiet, neatly-dressed, sleek maid entered, bearing a note upon a small silver salver. Helen assumed an air of indifference she did not feel. She glanced, from beneath her long dark eyelashes, rapidly at the letter, but she played with the pendants of a bracelet, and yawned in Chayter’s face. “A letter for you, if you please, miss,” said the girl, and handed it to her. “Put it down, Chayter,” said she, “I will read it by and by. I am in no humour now to bore over a long crossed scrawl from a tiresome school friend.” The girl laid the letter upon the small table at Helen’s elbow, remarking to herself, as she gazed upon the superscription, that the school friend wrote a remark ably vigorous, masculine hand. “Where is papa?” inquired Helen, with seeming apathy, although deeply interested in the answer. “In the library, if you please, miss,” the girl answered. “And mamma, and the rest of them,” added Helen. “Your mamma, and his Grace, and Miss Margaret, and Mr. Malcolm, are walking in the garden.” “Yes.” “And the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane and Miss Evangeline are in the drawing-room.” “In the drawing-room?” “Yes, miss.” “Alone?” “Yes, miss, quite alone.” “Indeed!” Helen felt surprised and annoyed to hear this. She did not stay to inquire why. Upon the first blush, it seemed to her that Lester Vane had no right to be alone with her sister. She was irritated and vexed; not, as she suggested to herself, that she cared, because she had a contempt for the man; but then, to preserve merely the harmony of consistency, he ought to be alone with no one else but her, and look into no other eyes than her own. Evangeline, too, so reserved--so shy. She shook her head. Perhaps there was more art and depth in that apparently timid girl than any of them had ever dreamed of. She determined, instantly, to observe her more closely. Evangeline hitherto had passed as a stupid, harmless, nervous child, yet beneath such an exterior might lurk much shrewd sagacity, and a power to think and act for herself for which she had not previously received credit.