If Ethel did not laugh much, a smile was rarely long absent from her lips, while there was a sparkle in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks such as, to those who knew her well, might almost have seemed due to a touch of fever. But, if such were the case, they had their origin in a fever of the mind rather than of the body. Was she happy? She could not have told. Had the question put itself to her, she would have thrust it aside, and have resolutely refused to answer it. Self-analysis was about the last thing she would have cared to enter upon just then; indeed, she was far too healthy-minded to indulge much at any time in introspective moods and fancies. So many surprising things had happened to her in the course of the day, that she might well be excused for feeling as if she had not yet recovered her mental equilibrium. She ate scarcely anything, and to her that scene at the supper-table was almost as unreal as some phantasmagoria, conjured up by an overwrought brain. What she needed was a long night’s sleep to calm her overheated pulses, and restore the delicate balance of her nervous system which a crowd of circumstances had for the moment sufficed to disturb. Supper was just over, but the ladies had not yet risen from the table, when Fanny, the under-housemaid, entered the room with a letter which had arrived by the evening post. The letter was addressed to “The Misses Thursby,” but, as a matter of course, she took it direct to Miss Matilda, as she would have taken it to Miss Jane had it not arrived till a fortnight later. Miss Matilda examined the address and postmark through her _pince-nez_, which she did not wear habitually, but only when reading or writing. “It bears the London postmark,” she remarked to her sister, across the table; “but the writing of the address is strange to me.” Then turning to Launce, with a smile and a little bow, she said: “Have I your permission, Mr. Keymer?” “Most certainly, my dear madam,” he replied, with a grave inclination of the head. Then, while Miss Matilda was occupied with the opening and reading of her letter, he said to himself, glancing from one sister to the other: “What a couple of queer old frumps they are! They are awfully nice and good, though, far too good, not to say goody-goody, for the like of me. If I were compelled to be shut up here, I should be bored to death in a week. I suppose this place will be Ethel’s, when they have gone over to the majority. Well, by that time, what’s Ethel’s will be mine, and it strikes me I could make myself pretty comfortable at Vale View, with a thousand, or twelve hundred a year. No, on second thoughts, I could never bear to settle down here. I should let the place and——but what’s up with the old damsel? She looks as if she might be going to have a fit.” And, indeed, Miss Matilda’s face, as she read the letter, had gradually faded to a dull, ashen hue.