Engaged to Dora Barham! incredible! monstrous! could he ask her? could she accept him? it seemed impossible: where was Dora’s love for Maurice? where Charles Huyton’s knowledge of that love? Till this moment she had not known how much she had depended on her constancy; how completely she had built her hopes for her brother’s happiness on some fortunate turn to their affairs. Well she knew how deep, how true, how tender were her brother’s feelings, how entirely he had surrendered his heart to this hapless affection; and though aware that no engagement had passed between them, it seemed to her that their recent intercourse in London had increased their mutual attachment. Oh! what could Dora mean then by thus abruptly abandoning him! What would Maurice feel when he learned her inconstancy! If she had been sincere to him, if her sentiments had been real, where was her faith to Mr. Huyton! by what name could an engagement with him be designated? and if she had been all this time trifling with Maurice! if she had been gratifying her own vanity at the expense of his happiness――but that was impossible! Dora was volatile, thoughtless, imprudent, but she was not deceitful, she was not heartless, she was not wicked. Hilary could not endure to think ill of her; there must be something unexplained; there was some secret which had not reached her yet. Perhaps compulsion had won from her an unwilling assent; moral force, parental authority, persecution, might have been employed; she knew Dora was weak, possibly she had not the strength of will to withstand such influence; she might rather deserve pity than blame. But for Mr. Huyton himself, what excuse could be urged! Maurice had been his chosen friend; a hundred times had he made professions of regard, or declarations of esteem for him; and he knew, or, at least, he was strongly suspicious of this esteemed friend’s attachment to Dora Barham! It was not a violent affection which misled him, and blinded his eyes; Hilary believed him at the best, indifferent, regarding Dora; he had always rather despised her intellect, and slighted her charms; no! love for her was not his excuse: there was no love in that cruel letter which Hilary now held in her hands. As her eyes slowly perused the words again, her fancy presented to her mind the terrible expression of his face when he had first heard of her own engagement. It seemed to ring in her ear once more, the bitter tone in which he had exclaimed, “You will wish rather that a demon had crossed your path than that you had thwarted me;” and as she remembered this, she felt that it was revenge he sought; a revenge for his slighted affection, which she could not choose but feel deeply. The happiness of Maurice and Dora was sacrificed, perhaps, to her own; it was her hasty marriage which had brought this impending grief on her darling brother!